NetEqualizer News Blog

Usually in the first few minutes of talking to a potential customer, one of their requests will be something like “I want to give QoS (Quality of Service) to Video”, or “I want to give Quality of Service to our Blackboard application.”

The point that is often overlooked by resellers, pushing QoS solutions, is that providing QoS for one type of traffic always involves taking bandwidth away from something else.

The network hacks understand this, but for those that are not down in the trenches sometimes we must gently walk them through a scenario.

Take the following typical exchange:

Customer: I want to give our customers access to NetFlix and have that take priority over P2P.

NetEq Rep: How do you know that you have a p2p problem?

Customer: We caught a guy with Kazaa on his Laptop last year so we know they are out there.

NetEq rep (after plugging in a test system and doing some analysis): It looks like you have some scattered p2p users, but they are only about 2 percent of your traffic load. Thirty percent of your peak traffic is video. If we give priority to all your video we will have to sacrifice something, web browsing, chat, e-mail, Skype, and Internet Radio. I know this seems like quite a bit but there is nothing else out there to steal from, you see in order to give priority to video we must take away bandwidth from something else and although you have p2p, stopping it will not provide enough bandwidth to make a dent in your video appetite.

Customer (now frustrated by reality): Well I guess I will just have to tell our clients they can’t watch video all the time. I can’t make web browsing slower to support video, that will just create a new problems.

If you have an oversubscribed network, meaning too many people vying for limited Internet resources, when you implement any form of QoS, you will still end up with an oversubscribed network. QoS must rob Peter to pay Paul.

So when is QoS worth while?

QoS is a great idea if you understand who you are stealing from.

Here are some facts on using QoS to improve your Internet Connection:

Fact #1

If your QoS mechanism involves modifying packets with special instructions (ToS bits) on how it should be treated, it will only work on links where you control both ends of the circuit and everything in between.

Fact #2

Most Internet congestion is caused by incoming traffic. For data originating at your facility, you can certainly have your local router give priority to it on its way out, but you can’t set QoS bits on traffic coming into your network (we assume from a third party). Regulating outgoing traffic with ToS bits will not have any effect on incoming traffic.

Fact #3

Your public Internet provider will not treat ToS bits with any form of priority (the exception would be a contracted MPLS type network). Yes, they could, but if they did then everybody would game the system to get an advantage and they would not have much meaning anyway.

Fact #4

The next two facts address our initial question — Is QoS over the Internet possible? The answer is, yes. QoS on an Internet link is possible. We have spent the better part of seven years practicing this art form and it is not rocket science, but it does require a philosophical shift in thinking to get your arms around.

We call it “equalizing,” or behavior-based shaping, and it involves monitoring incoming and outgoing streams on your Internet link. Priority or QoS is nothing more than favoring one stream’s packets over another stream’s packets. You can accomplish priority QoS on incoming streams by queuing (slowing down) one stream over another without relying on ToS bits.

Fact #5

Surprisingly, behavior-based methods such as those used by our NetEqualizer do provide a level QoS for VoIP on the public Internet. Although you can’t tell the Internet to send your VoIP packets faster, most people don’t realize the problem with congested VoIP is due to the fact that their VoIP packets are getting crowded out by large downloads. Often, the offending downloads are initiated by their own employees or users. A good behavior-based shaper will be able to favor VoIP streams over less essential data streams without any reliance on the sending party adhering to a QoS scheme.

Please remember our initial point “providing QoS for one type of traffic always involves taking bandwidth away from something else,” and take these facts into consideration as you work on QoS for your network.