Cisco CMTS Router Quality of Service Features Configuration Guide, Release 12.2SC
Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Table Of Contents

Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Finding Feature Information

Contents

Prerequisites for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Restrictions for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Information About Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

How to Configure Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Configuring Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Restrictions

Examples

Configuring Maximum Excess Information Rate Ratio

Examples

Configuring Maximum Bonus Bandwidth

Restrictions

Examples

Verifying the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Verifying Reservable Bandwidth

Verifying Global Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

Verifying Per-Controller Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

Verifying Per-Interface Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

Troubleshooting

Configuration Examples for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Example: Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Example: Maximum EIR Demand Ratio

Example: Maximum Bonus Bandwidth

Additional References

Related Documents

Standards

MIBs

RFCs

Technical Assistance

Feature Information for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces


Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces


First Published: June 20, 2011

The Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature introduces an adaptive mechanism to effectively distribute reservable bandwidth for committed information rate (CIR) flows and fair bandwidth for best-effort (BE) service flows across adjacent bonding groups (BGs).

Finding Feature Information

Your software release may not support all the features documented in this module. For the latest feature information and caveats, see the release notes for your platform and software release. To find information about the features documented in this module, and to see a list of the releases in which each feature is supported, see the "Feature Information for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces" section.

Use Cisco Feature Navigator to find information about platform support and Cisco software image support. To access Cisco Feature Navigator, go to http://www.cisco.com/go/cfn. An account on Cisco.com is not required.

Contents

Prerequisites for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Restrictions for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Information About Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

How to Configure Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Verifying the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Configuration Examples for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Additional References

Feature Information for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Prerequisites for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Table 1 shows the hardware compatibility prerequisites for this feature.


Note The hardware components introduced in a given Cisco IOS Release will be supported in all subsequent releases unless otherwise specified.


Table 1 Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces for the Cisco CMTS Routers Hardware Compatibility Matrix

CMTS Platform
Processor Engine
Cable Interface Cards
SIP/SPA

Cisco uBR10012 Universal Broadband Router

Cisco IOS Release 12.2(33)SCF and later

PRE2

PRE4

Cisco IOS Release 12.2(33)SCF and later

Cisco uBR-MC5X20H1

Cisco UBR-MC20X20V

Cisco uBR-MC3GX60V2

Cisco IOS Release 12.2(33)SCF and later

Cisco Wideband SIP and Cisco Wideband SPA

Cisco 10000 Series SIP-600 and Cisco Wideband SPA

1 When Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature is enabled, the Cisco uBR-5X20H cable interface line card can only act as a Guardian or MAC domain host as bonding is not supported on the card.

2 The Cisco uBR-3GX60V cable interface line card is not compatible with PRE2. You must use PRE4 with the Cisco uBR-3GX60V cable interface line card.



Note The term `Bonding Group (BG)' is used in this document to refer to all the integrated-cable (IC), modular-cable (MC), and wideband-cable (WC) interfaces in the context of Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature context. The IC and MC interfaces are considered as a single-channel BG.


Restrictions for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

The CIR flows cannot reserve all the RF bandwidth. The CIR flows can only reserve 90 percent1 of the RF bandwidth that is not statically reserved by the "bandwidth-percent", in addition to the legacy CIR bandwidth.

It is recommended that the CIR reservation be cleared before disabling Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature to ensure that the CIR reservation is not more than the static reservable bandwidth specified by the "bandwidth-percent" in legacy configuration. This is to prevent CIR over-subscription after disabling Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature.

The effect of Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature depends on topology and flow distribution. In certain cases, Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature may not achieve BE fairness or maximum CIR utilization.

Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature applies only to dynamic bandwidth sharing (DBS) enabled IC, MC, and WB interfaces.

Information About Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

The Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature is an enhancement over the DOCSIS WFQ scheduler. It enables downstream CIR service flows to be admitted on the interfaces over the thresholds defined in the legacy configuration (that is, "bandwidth-percent" or "max-reserved-bandwidth"). For example, the feature enables large CIR flows (like multicast service flows) to be admitted when the current parameters cannot guarantee enough bandwidth. However, its success rate depends on the allocation and reservation of the bandwidth for cable interfaces within common RF channels.

This feature also ensures fair bandwidth for downstream BE service flows across cable interfaces with common RF channels. The per-flow bandwidth of all active service flows on the adjacent BGs are balanced periodically in proportion to their DOCSIS traffic priority (traffic priority + 1) for downstream BE service flows. This bandwidth, available for BE traffic, can also be used to admit additional CIR flows.


Note For information about DOCSIS traffic priority, see DOCSIS WFQ Scheduler on the Cisco CMTS Routers guide.


How to Configure Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

This section describes the following tasks that are required to implement Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature:

Configuring Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces (required)

Configuring Maximum Excess Information Rate Ratio (required)

Configuring Maximum Bonus Bandwidth (optional)

Configuring Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

This section describes how to enable Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature on the cable interfaces. The configuration is applied to all WB, MC or IC interfaces on the router.

Restrictions

We recommend that you clear the CIR reservation before disabling the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature to ensure that CIR reservation is not more than the static reservable bandwidth specified by the "bandwidth-percent" in the legacy configuration.

SUMMARY STEPS

1. enable

2. configure terminal

3. cable acfe enable

4. exit

DETAILED STEPS

 
Command or Action
Purpose

Step 1 

enable

Example:

Router> enable

Enables privileged EXEC mode.

Enter your password if prompted.

Step 2 

configure terminal

Example:

Router# configure terminal

Enters global configuration mode.

Step 3 

cable acfe enable

Example:

Router(config)# cable acfe enable

Enables Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature on the cable interfaces.

Step 4 

exit

Example:

Router(config)# exit

Exits global configuration mode and returns to privileged EXEC mode.

Examples

The following example enables Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature on the cable interfaces:

Router> enable
Router# configure terminal
Router(config)# cable acfe enable
Router(config)# exit

Tip Use the no form of the cable acfe enable command to disable Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature.


Configuring Maximum Excess Information Rate Ratio

This section describes how to configure the maximum Excess Information Rate (EIR) ratio between the BE bandwidth among adjacent BGs.

The EIR ratio is used to maintain the maximum EIR bandwidth difference between BGs. It helps to prevent BGs (which has only a few active BE service flows) from getting very low or zero EIR bandwidth. Otherwise, these BGs will not be able to admit CIR flows as they get only very low EIR bandwidth.

For example, there are two BGs sharing the same RF channel, with BG1 having 1000 active BE service flows and BG2 having none. If "max-eir-ratio" is not used, BG1 gets all the bandwidth leaving no bandwidth for BG2. When a voice CIR tries for bandwidth at BG2, it will get rejected. If "max-eir-ratio" is set at 10, BG2 gets about 10 percent of the QAM that is sufficient to admit the voice CIR. The `max-eir-ratio' is a trade-off between perfect fairness and CIR utilization. It means, compromising 'flow fairness' to prevent some BGs from getting all the bandwidth leaving the other BGs with none.

SUMMARY STEPS

1. enable

2. configure terminal

3. cable acfe max-eir-ratio eir-ratio

4. exit

DETAILED STEPS

 
Command or Action
Purpose

Step 1 

enable

Example:

Router> enable

Enables privileged EXEC mode.

Enter your password if prompted.

Step 2 

configure terminal

Example:

Router# configure terminal

Enters global configuration mode.

Step 3 

cable acfe max-eir-ratio eir-ratio

Example:

Router(config)# cable acfe max-eir-ratio 20

Configures the maximum EIR ratio between the BE bandwidth among adjacent BGs.

eir-ratio—EIR balance ratio. The valid range is from 1 to 100 with a default value of 10.

Step 4 

exit

Example:

Router(config)# exit

Exits global configuration mode and returns to privileged EXEC mode.

Examples

The following example shows how to configure the maximum EIR ratio between the BE bandwidth among adjacent BGs:

Router> enable
Router# configure terminal
Router(config)# cable acfe max-eir-ratio 20
Router(config)# exit

Tip Use the no form of the cable acfe max-eir-ratio command to return to the default values.


Configuring Maximum Bonus Bandwidth

This section describes how to configure the maximum usable bonus bandwidth for a BG.

Bonus bandwidth is the additional bandwidth provided by the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature to each BG for CIR reservation. In the default maximum bonus bandwidth configuration, a single BG can reserve all the underlying RF bandwidth. When the maximum bonus is set, the AC module will not admit CIR flows above that setting even if the scheduler has guaranteed more bandwidth. This will effectively prevent BGs from being starved for CIR flows.


Note The cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth command configuration is applicable only for the new incoming CIR flows. It will not terminate the existing CIR flows that exceeds the "max-bonus-bandwidth".


Restrictions

If the maximum bonus bandwidth is less than the current CIR reservation on an interface, no new CIR flows are admitted until the CIR reservation drops below the maximum bonus bandwidth configuration.

SUMMARY STEPS

1. enable

2. configure terminal

3. interface {wideband-cable | modular-cable | integrated-cable} slot/subslot/port:interface-num

4. cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth bonus-bandwidth

5. exit

DETAILED STEPS

 
Command or Action
Purpose

Step 1 

enable

Example:

Router> enable

Enables privileged EXEC mode.

Enter your password if prompted.

Step 2 

configure terminal

Example:

Router# configure terminal

Enters global configuration mode.

Step 3 

interface {wideband-cable | modular-cable | interface-cable} slot/subslot/port:interface-num

Example:

Router(config)# interface wideband-cable 1/0/0:0

Specifies the interface to be configured.

slot—Slot number of the cable interface.

subslot—Subslot number of the cable interface.

port—Port number.

interface-num—Interface number.

Note The valid values for the above arguments depend on CMTS router and cable interface line card. See the hardware documentation for your router chassis and cable interface line card for supported values.

Step 4 

cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth bonus-bandwidth

Example:

Router(config-if)# cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth 1000000

Configures the maximum usable bonus bandwidth for a BG.

bonus-bandwidth—Maximum usable bonus bandwidth. There is no valid range, and the bonus bandwidth can use the entire bandwidth of an interface.

Step 5 

end

Example:

Router(config)# end

Exits interface configuration mode and returns to privileged EXEC mode.

Examples

The following example shows how to configure the maximum usable bonus bandwidth for a BG:

Router> enable
Router# configure terminal
Router(config)# interface wideband-cable 1/0/0:0
Router(config-if)# cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth 1000000
Router(config)# exit

Tip Use the no form of the cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth command to return to the default values.


Verifying the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

To monitor the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature, use the following procedures:

Verifying Reservable Bandwidth

Verifying Global Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

Verifying Per-Controller Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

Verifying Per-Interface Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

Verifying Reservable Bandwidth

To display the reserved and reservable bandwidth for a particular interface, use the show interface {wideband-cable | modular-cable | integrated-cable} command as shown in the example:

Router# show interfaces wideband-cable 1/0/0:1 downstream
Total downstream bandwidth 3235 Kbps
Total downstream reserved/reservable bandwidth 0/200 Kbps
Total downstream guaranteed/non-guaranteed bonus bandwidth 66618/9972 Kbps
!

The "reservable bandwidth" is a part of the guaranteed bandwidth from the legacy configuration. When the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature is disabled, values of both the "guaranteed bonus bandwidth" and "non-guaranteed bonus bandwidth" are zero. When the feature is enabled, the "reservable bandwidth" and "guaranteed bonus bandwidth" represents the maximum CIR that can be reserved on the interface. Unicast CIR flows exceeding this limit are rejected. The additional "non-guaranteed bonus bandwidth" allows the multicast CIR flows to pass the AC module. However, the service flow may not be created successful because the bandwidth comes from the shared pool.


Note The "guaranteed bonus bandwidth" and "non-guaranteed bonus bandwidth" are part of the bandwidth provided by the maximum bonus bandwidth configuration.
The "non-guaranteed bonus bandwidth" is expected to be used only by multicast service flows in Cisco IOS Release 12.2(33)SCF.


To display the reserved and reservable bandwidth for a particular interface, use the show cable admission-control interface command as shown in the example:

Router# show cable admission-control interface wideband-cable 1/0/0:1 verbose
Interface Wideband-Cable1/0/0:1
Configured AC Max Reservable Bandwidth = 6000000 bps
 Resource - Downstream Bandwidth
 -------------------------------
Bkt    Name   Minor # of  Major # of  Excls # of  Non-Ex Curr. Curr. Conf  # of
No            Level Times Level Times Level Times Level  Resv  Ovrsb Level Rej
1             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
2             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
3             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
4             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
5             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
6             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
7             0     0     0     0     0     0     0  *    0.0   0.0  G       0
8             0     0     0     0     0     0     100*   50.0   0.0  G       0
 Note: * indicates that the thresholds are implicit
WB-NB CIR for Wideband-Cable1/0/0:1
CIR Values for Cable8/1/4
Bkt SFAC BW    Rsvd CIR   Reject #
0   0          0          0
1   0          0          0
2   0          0          0
3   0          0          0
4   0          0          0
5   0          0          0
6   0          0          0
7   4500000    3000000    0
Available Guaranteed Bonus BW (bps): 30375000
Available Non-guaranteed Bonus BW (bps): 0
WB Multicast CIR Utilization
Bkt SFAC BW    Rsvd CIR   Reject #
0   0          0          0
1   0          0          0
2   0          0          0
3   0          0          0
4   0          0          0
5   0          0          0
6   0          0          0
7   1500000    0          0
Available Guaranteed Bonus BW (bps): 30375000
Available Non-guaranteed Bonus BW (bps): 0

Verifying Global Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

To display the global status and statistics of the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature, use the show cable acfe summary command as shown in the example:

Router# show cable acfe summary
ACFE state: Enabled
EIR Rebalance period (secs): 5
EIR Rebalance invocations:   254
CIR Acquire rate/limit:      100/100
CIR Acquire invocations:     0
CIR Acquire throttled:       0
CIR Oversubscriptions:       0
Maximal EIR ratio:           10

Verifying Per-Controller Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

To display the status and statistics for each controller interface, use the show cable acfe controller command as shown in the following example:

Router# show cable acfe controller modular-cable 1/0/0
EIR Rebalance invoked: 301832
Adaptive CIR granted:  0
Adaptive CIR rejected: 0
Total clusters: 2
!

The BG clusters span across multiple channels and are used as a means to share the underlying RF channel bandwidth dynamically.

RF      FlexBW
0       30375
1       30375
RF      FlexBW
2       30375
3       30375

Verifying Per-Interface Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces Status and Statistics

To display the status and statistics for each interface, use the show cable acfe interface command as shown in the following example:

Router# show cable acfe interface wideband-cable 1/0/0:1
EIR Demand (raw/scale):   0/1
Per-Flow EIR BW (kbps):   19125
Guar Bonus BW (kbps):     19125
Non-guar Bonus BW (kbps): 38250
Reserved Bonus BW (kbps): 0
!

The EIR demand is the number of active BE service flows for each BG within a specific time period weighted by DOCSIS priority. The EIR portion is adjusted periodically in proportion to the EIR demand for each BG within the same BG cluster.

AC Max Reserved Bandwidth: 200 kbps
Bucket Reservations (kbps):
!

For information on Bucket Reservations, see the Service Flow Admission Control for the Cisco CMTS Routers guide.

!

Troubleshooting

The following debug commands help you troubleshoot an improper configuration:

debug cable acfe—Enables debug operation for the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature. You should run the debug cable acfe command first to enable other debug options listed below.

debug cable acfe algorithm—Provides debugging information on internal operations of algorithms.

debug cable acfe all—Provides debugging information of all cable events.

debug cable acfe filter—Provides debugging information after applying the filter to limit the debug output.

debug cable acfe filter controller—Provides debugging information on specific controllers.

debug cable acfe cluster—Provides debugging information on specific clusters.

debug cable acfe hccp—Provides debugging information on high availability and Hot Standby Connection-to-Connection Protocol (HCCP) activities.

debug cable acfe process—Provides debugging information on process activities.

debug cable acfe read—Provides debugging information from the system.

debug cable acfe topology—Provides debugging information on cluster topology.

debug cable acfe verbose—Provides debugging information on all internal data.

debug cable acfe write—Provides debugging output to the router.

For detailed information on these and other debug commands, see the Cisco IOS CMTS Cable Command Reference guide.

Configuration Examples for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

This section lists the following sample configurations for the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature on a Cisco CMTS router:

Example: Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Example: Maximum EIR Demand Ratio

Example: Maximum Bonus Bandwidth

Example: Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

The following sample configuration shows Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature enabled on the router:

Current configuration : 39682 bytes
!
! Last configuration change at 04:30:02 UTC Wed Jan 19 2
! NVRAM config last updated at 04:23:17 UTC Wed Jan 19 2
!
version 12.2
!
cable clock dti
cable acfe enable
!
.
.
.

Example: Maximum EIR Demand Ratio

The following sample configuration shows maximum EIR demand ratio configured on the router:

Building configuration...
Current configuration : 54253 bytes
!
version 12.2
!
cable clock dti
cable acfe enable
cable acfe max-eir-ratio 20
!

The effect of the cable acfe max-eir-ratio command is demonstrated using a simple BG cluster, a 37.5 Mbps RF bandwidth shared by an MC and WB interface. The interfaces are configured as given in the following configuration example:

!
interface Modular-Cable1/0/0:0
cable bundle 1
 cable rf-bandwidth-percent 10
!
interface Wideband-Cable1/0/0:0
cable bundle 1
 cable rf-channel 0 bandwidth-percent 10
end
!

On this RF channel, 20 percent of the bandwidth is reserved by the `bandwidth-percent' allowing Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature to use 27 Mbps, that is: (100 - 20) * 90 * 37.5). If the `max-eir-ratio' is above 100 and the WB interface has 99 active BE flows and the MC interface has only 1 BE flow, then MC interface gets only 270 kbps, that is 1/(1+99)*27 of the bonus bandwidth. The BE traffic enjoys perfect fairness here. However, it is not possible to admit a unicast CIR flow beyond 270 kbps on the MC interface, as it would exceed the bonus bandwidth. If the `max-eir-ratio' is set to 10, then the MC interface is treated to have 99/10 flows on it, resulting in a higher bonus bandwidth allocation. The `max-eir-ratio' is a trade-off between perfect fairness and CIR utilization.

Example: Maximum Bonus Bandwidth

The following sample configuration shows the maximum bonus bandwidth enabled on the router:

Building configuration...
Current configuration : 274 bytes
!
interface Wideband-Cable1/0/0:0
cable bundle 1
cable rf-channel 0 bandwidth-percent 10
cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth 10000
end
!

In this per-interface configuration, even if the Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature guarantees more than 10 Mbps for a WB interface, the AC module will not pass more than 10 Mbps bandwidth above the legacy reservable bandwidth.

!
.
.
.

Additional References

Related Documents

Related Topic
Document Title

Cisco IOS commands

Cisco IOS Master Commands List, All Releases

Cisco IOS CMTS Cable Command Reference

Cisco IOS CMTS Command Reference

Dynamic Bandwidth Sharing

Dynamic Bandwidth Sharing on the Cisco CMTS Router

DOCSIS WFQ Scheduler

DOCSIS WFQ Scheduler on the Cisco CMTS Routers

Service Flow Admission Control for the Cisco CMTS Routers

Service Flow Admission Control for the Cisco CMTS Routers


Standards

Standard
Title

No new or modified standards are supported by this feature, and support for existing standards has not been modified by this feature.


MIBs

MIB
MIBs Link

No new or modified MIBs are supported by this feature, and support for existing MIBs has not been modified by this feature.

To locate and download MIBs for selected platforms, Cisco software releases, and feature sets, use Cisco MIB Locator found at the following URL:

http://www.cisco.com/go/mibs


RFCs

RFC
Title

No new or modified RFCs are supported by this feature, and support for existing RFCs has not been modified by this feature.


Technical Assistance

Description
Link

The Cisco Support and Documentation website provides online resources to download documentation, software, and tools. Use these resources to install and configure the software and to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues with Cisco products and technologies. Access to most tools on the Cisco Support and Documentation website requires a Cisco.com user ID and password.

http://www.cisco.com/cisco/web/support/index.html


Feature Information for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

Table 2 lists the release history for this feature.

Use Cisco Feature Navigator to find information about platform support and software image support. Cisco Feature Navigator enables you to determine which software images support a specific software release, feature set, or platform. To access Cisco Feature Navigator, go to http://www.cisco.com/go/cfn. An account on Cisco.com is not required.


Note Table 2 lists only the software release that introduced support for a given feature in a given software release train. Unless noted otherwise, subsequent releases of that software release train also support that feature.


Table 2 Feature Information for Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces 

Feature Name
Releases
Feature Information

Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces

12.2(33)SCF

The Fairness Across DOCSIS Interfaces feature introduces an adaptive mechanism to effectively distribute reservable bandwidth for CIR flows and fair bandwidth for BE service flows across adjacent BGs.

The following commands were introduced or modified:

cable acfe enable

cable acfe max-eir-ratio

cable acfe max-bonus-bandwidth

debug cable acfe

debug cable acfe filter

show cable acfe controller

show cable acfe interface

show cable acfe summary

show cable admission-control

show cr10k-rp controller

show interface integrated-cable

show interface modular-cable

show interface wideband-cable


1 The reservable bandwidth for CIR flows consists of static and dynamic portions. By default, the static portion of bandwidth is assigned from the legacy configuration. The dynamic portion of bandwidth comes from the headroom left on each RF channel for BE traffic.