In one of my previous posts I was explaining how to mark packets closer to network edge. Starting from that point, we are sure the packets are market with the correct value, so on the router device we can directly match those packets and prioritize using Low Latency Queueing.

I believe you already know why queueing is so important for Voice packet especially, but also for all other kind of real time protocol (e.g. Video over IP), but just a small reminder. Most of the interfaces are using FIFO method for queuing. This is the most basic queue method and as you probably know means First In First Out. In human terms, first packet how arrive on the interface will be send first. Nothing wrong with this theory until this point and I can assure you that most of the time you don’t have to do anything to improve this technique. But what if you have real time protocols (e.g. voip services) and data transfer over the same physical interface? With FIFO the packets are sent out the interface as they arrive, but this is not very good for the delay sensitive traffic like voice. If a TCP packet in HTTP flow can wait it’s turn to be sent out, with not visible impact for user, than a delayed voice packet will cause deprecation in voice call.

With this problems need to be solved we arrive at LLQ, which is an ehanced version of Priority Queueing (PQ) in a Class-Based Weighted Fair Queueing (CBWFQ).

Before we start let’s have a look to the topology we will use (the same like in Cisco: Mark voice packets at the network edge post):

After marking the packets on the Access Switch,now we want to prioritize voice packets on the core router:

1) Match packets market with EF in a class-map

class-map VOICE
match dscp 46

2) Configure a policy-map unde which you match the traffic in the class-map VOICE and enable LLQ. The parameter “priority” is the one telling policy-map to enable priority queueing under that class. The value after the “priority” keyword can be a value in kbps or percentage from the total bandwidth. In the example below I assume that I have a 10Mbps bandwidth and I’ll configure LLQ class to use 10% from it, meaning 1000kbps

policy-map MYPOLICY
class VOICE
priority 1000

or with percentage

policy-map MYPOLICY
class VOICE
priority percent 10

I have to tell you that after the bandwidth or percent value you can add a burst value in bytes. If you don’t add this value, it will be calculated automatically. I chose this method when I’m doing simple config, but if you want to fine tune the values you can calculate it yourself and add it. Be careful that a higher value will influence the Tc value in the process.

3) Apply the policy to the WAN interface of the Core router (I assumed that the Core router is your direct connection to provider backbone) direction outbound. You cannot apply this type of queueing direction inbound. Keep this in mind.

interface s0/0
service-policy output MYPOLICY

If you insist on applying it inbound, you’ll get an error message:

Core(config-if)#service-policy input MYPOLICY
Low Latency Queueing feature not supported in input policy.

To check that your queueing policy is applied:

show policy-map interface s0/0

Service-policy output: MYPOLICY

queue stats for all priority classes:

queue limit 64 packets
(queue depth/total drops/no-buffer drops) 0/0/0
(pkts output/bytes output) 0/0

Class-map: VOICE (match-all)
0 packets, 0 bytes
5 minute offered rate 0 bps, drop rate 0 bps
Match: EF
Priority: 10% (1000 kbps), burst bytes 25000, b/w exceed drops: 0

Class-map: class-default (match-any)
0 packets, 0 bytes
5 minute offered rate 0 bps, drop rate 0 bps
Match: any

queue limit 64 packets
(queue depth/total drops/no-buffer drops) 0/0/0
(pkts output/bytes output) 0/0