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Quality of Service (QoS)

MK31
Level 1
Level 1

What are the requirement of quality of service (QoS) levels when measuring the performance of system system?

2 Accepted Solutions

Accepted Solutions

Hi

 You question need to be more specific.  The requirement of QoS depends on the application. The application dictates what will be necessary for QoS. Who developed the application must inform what is necessary for minimum requirement considering on client and is up to you do the math as you know how many clients you have. 

 Dont forget that QoS is necessary IF you dont have enough bandwidth. Also, there´s something called oversubscrition that is very important to consider. If one application requires 1 Mbps and you have 100 application like that, you dont need to multiply by 100. Application dont use the link all the time. 

 

View solution in original post

"Dont forget that QoS is necessary IF you dont have enough bandwidth."

BTW, not always true and sometimes QoS is even useful when there's enough bandwidth.

"If one application requires 1 Mbps and you have 100 application like that, you dont need to multiply by 100."

Often true, but finding the "correct" allocation amount can be "tricky", when this isn't done.  Further, sometimes/often you really do need to "guarantee" max flow rate times max flow usage is available.

QoS, might be used to provide the "guarantee" yet still allow other traffic to use the moment-by-moment unused bandwidth for other purposes.

 

Addendum

Since @Flavio Miranda mentions video as a consideration, let's explore video demands and/or QoS, as a good example of why I note correct bandwidth allocations can be "tricky" and also how QoS can sometimes help.

Assume we have a (digital) video signal, uncompressed, and at a constant bit rate of 1 Mbps.  How much bandwidth do we need to transmit it from point A to point B?  We'll need 1 Mbps.

Further assume we now encode our 1 Mbps video signal using MPEG4, creating an average 250 Kbps bandwidth consumption.  How much bandwidth do we need to transmit it from point A to point B?  We'll need 250 Kbps, right?  Probably not enough, as "average" consumption that's 100% of available, often creates almost an infinite queue.  I.e. we'll need excess bandwidth to avoid queuing, but how much?  Well, if you still have 1 Mbps of available bandwidth, there should be the need for no queuing.  I.e.  We'll want something in the range of 250 Kbps to 1 Mbps, but exactly where?

As a very rough rule, consider up to 1/3 average utilization has very little need to queue, 1/3 to 2/3 some queuing, and 2/3 and up, much queuing.  (NB: the queuing need increases, non-linearly, as usage percentage increases.)  Usually, if we have 3x to 2x the available bandwidth to average utilization, we have little to minimal queuing.

So, for our (average) 250 Kbps video stream, we should make available to it, 500  to 750 Kbps.

Are we done?  No, because there are two main "kinds" of video.  First is streaming video, the second is real-time video.

For streaming video, clients tend to "buffer" a few seconds of video.  This means, such video tolerate some queuing.  I.e. for such traffic, again for our 250 Kbps stream, 500 Kbps, or even a tad less, might be just fine.  We do, though, need to insure there's sufficient buffer/queue space to not drop packets (NB: as bandwidth is decreased, more buffer/queue space will be needed).

For real-time video, clients do not buffer video.  This means such video cannot tolerate much, if any, queuing.  I.e. for such traffic, again for our 250 Kbps stream, 750 Kbps, or even a tad more, might be just fine.  1 Mbps, though, guarantees no need to queue at all.

The forgoing addresses just one video stream bandwidth's need.  If there are other concurrent traffic flows, are bandwidth allocations different from just x times number of flows?  Or, if the other traffic is "different", does that effect x times number of flows?

Yes and no to both.  More like video flows create a "tighter" overall average bandwidth consumption, which appears to allow decreasing overall bandwidth allocation, but increases the likely hood of a "perfect storm", i.e. all your video flows "crash" at the same time.  This, though, will be less often than how one or few flows would be impacted.  (Unsure of the math, but suspect overall average, per flow "crash", might work out to be about the same.  I.e. less often occurrence with many flows, but a "crash" with many flows, crashes many flows per crash.)

The impact of other traffic types, without any QoS, often makes it impossible to guarantee any service level without physically setting aside bandwidth.  I.e. we might need to dedicate a link, or "channel" it's bandwidth, to guarantee our video has the bandwidth its needs to function as desired.

With QoS, we can guarantee bandwidth, you need not lock up all the time.  For example, on a 2 Mbps link, we can guarantee our video, for example, 1 Mbps, but as it averages 250 Kbps, we have 1.750 Mbps, on average, available for other traffic use.  (An example of where QoS can be of benefit even when it appears we have sufficient bandwidth.)

View solution in original post

6 Replies 6

Hi

 You question need to be more specific.  The requirement of QoS depends on the application. The application dictates what will be necessary for QoS. Who developed the application must inform what is necessary for minimum requirement considering on client and is up to you do the math as you know how many clients you have. 

 Dont forget that QoS is necessary IF you dont have enough bandwidth. Also, there´s something called oversubscrition that is very important to consider. If one application requires 1 Mbps and you have 100 application like that, you dont need to multiply by 100. Application dont use the link all the time. 

 

"Dont forget that QoS is necessary IF you dont have enough bandwidth."

BTW, not always true and sometimes QoS is even useful when there's enough bandwidth.

"If one application requires 1 Mbps and you have 100 application like that, you dont need to multiply by 100."

Often true, but finding the "correct" allocation amount can be "tricky", when this isn't done.  Further, sometimes/often you really do need to "guarantee" max flow rate times max flow usage is available.

QoS, might be used to provide the "guarantee" yet still allow other traffic to use the moment-by-moment unused bandwidth for other purposes.

 

Addendum

Since @Flavio Miranda mentions video as a consideration, let's explore video demands and/or QoS, as a good example of why I note correct bandwidth allocations can be "tricky" and also how QoS can sometimes help.

Assume we have a (digital) video signal, uncompressed, and at a constant bit rate of 1 Mbps.  How much bandwidth do we need to transmit it from point A to point B?  We'll need 1 Mbps.

Further assume we now encode our 1 Mbps video signal using MPEG4, creating an average 250 Kbps bandwidth consumption.  How much bandwidth do we need to transmit it from point A to point B?  We'll need 250 Kbps, right?  Probably not enough, as "average" consumption that's 100% of available, often creates almost an infinite queue.  I.e. we'll need excess bandwidth to avoid queuing, but how much?  Well, if you still have 1 Mbps of available bandwidth, there should be the need for no queuing.  I.e.  We'll want something in the range of 250 Kbps to 1 Mbps, but exactly where?

As a very rough rule, consider up to 1/3 average utilization has very little need to queue, 1/3 to 2/3 some queuing, and 2/3 and up, much queuing.  (NB: the queuing need increases, non-linearly, as usage percentage increases.)  Usually, if we have 3x to 2x the available bandwidth to average utilization, we have little to minimal queuing.

So, for our (average) 250 Kbps video stream, we should make available to it, 500  to 750 Kbps.

Are we done?  No, because there are two main "kinds" of video.  First is streaming video, the second is real-time video.

For streaming video, clients tend to "buffer" a few seconds of video.  This means, such video tolerate some queuing.  I.e. for such traffic, again for our 250 Kbps stream, 500 Kbps, or even a tad less, might be just fine.  We do, though, need to insure there's sufficient buffer/queue space to not drop packets (NB: as bandwidth is decreased, more buffer/queue space will be needed).

For real-time video, clients do not buffer video.  This means such video cannot tolerate much, if any, queuing.  I.e. for such traffic, again for our 250 Kbps stream, 750 Kbps, or even a tad more, might be just fine.  1 Mbps, though, guarantees no need to queue at all.

The forgoing addresses just one video stream bandwidth's need.  If there are other concurrent traffic flows, are bandwidth allocations different from just x times number of flows?  Or, if the other traffic is "different", does that effect x times number of flows?

Yes and no to both.  More like video flows create a "tighter" overall average bandwidth consumption, which appears to allow decreasing overall bandwidth allocation, but increases the likely hood of a "perfect storm", i.e. all your video flows "crash" at the same time.  This, though, will be less often than how one or few flows would be impacted.  (Unsure of the math, but suspect overall average, per flow "crash", might work out to be about the same.  I.e. less often occurrence with many flows, but a "crash" with many flows, crashes many flows per crash.)

The impact of other traffic types, without any QoS, often makes it impossible to guarantee any service level without physically setting aside bandwidth.  I.e. we might need to dedicate a link, or "channel" it's bandwidth, to guarantee our video has the bandwidth its needs to function as desired.

With QoS, we can guarantee bandwidth, you need not lock up all the time.  For example, on a 2 Mbps link, we can guarantee our video, for example, 1 Mbps, but as it averages 250 Kbps, we have 1.750 Mbps, on average, available for other traffic use.  (An example of where QoS can be of benefit even when it appears we have sufficient bandwidth.)

MK31
Level 1
Level 1

The application is an e-learning system

 There might exist some documentation about this e-learning system that can help you with the requirements. Not only for QoS but Jitter  and delay. For e-learning, if you have video involved, it is very critical to attend the jitter and delay requirement otherwise you can have client with poor experience. 

 

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

"What are the requirement of quality of service (QoS) levels when measuring the performance of system system?"

Huh?  Unclear to me, what you're asking.

"The application is an e-learning system"

The application?  There are no other applications sharing any links?

What service needs does this e-learning system need to work well?

 

I suspect you're not well versed in QoS yet need to insure some kind of e-learning system needs to work well; correct?

If so, generally QoS deals with how applications are provided network resources, i.e. allocating/management (beyond the usual/default "best effort" and/or "first come, first served"), with the goal to provide predictable and/or a guaranteed network service level.

As @Flavio Miranda notes, "The requirement of QoS depends on the application.", but it further needs to understand the network service requirements for anything else (i.e. other applications) concurrently using network resources.

 

Joseph W. Doherty
Hall of Fame
Hall of Fame

"What are the requirement of quality of service (QoS) levels when measuring the performance of system system?"

Huh?  Unclear to me, what you're asking.

"The application is an e-learning system"

The application?  There are no other applications sharing any links?

What service needs does this e-learning system need to work well?

 

I suspect you're not well versed in QoS yet need to insure some kind of e-learning system needs to work well; correct?

If so, generally QoS deals with how applications are provided network resources, i.e. allocating/management (beyond the usual/default "best effort" and/or "first come, first served"), with the goal to provide predictable and/or a guaranteed network service level.

As @Flavio Miranda notes, "The requirement of QoS depends on the application.", but it further needs to understand the network service requirements for anything else (i.e. other applications) concurrently using network resources.

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