ME3400 - police vs. rate-limit

[evantol]

While configuring an ME3400 for the first time, I noticed that the physical interfaces offer the ability to enter a 'rate-limit' command. There is also the option to configure policing within a 'policy-map' and attach that to an interface using the 'service-policy' command. My question is, what's the difference between the two, if any? If there is no difference, then why does 'rate-limit' offer more flexible BC options (1000-512000000) than the policy-map 'police' option which imposes a 1Mb burst limitation?

[j-block]

There is a nice example on the usage of Police and Rate-Limit.

Refer to http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/iosswrel/ps1829/products_feature_guide09186a00803d4f7e.html#wp1027265

[evantol]

Thanks, but unfortunately, my question wasn't about how to configure either feature. If you could provide an answer to the question I posed, I'd really appreciate it. I'm also not asking about the difference between traffic shaping and policing.

[dfontain]

Perhaps this explanation helps.

"Cisco recommends using the modular QoS CLI  features when possible to implement quality of service in your network.  Use class-based policing through the police command in a service policy  to implement rate limiting without buffering or queuing. Avoid using  CAR, for which no new features or functionality is planned."

Source:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk543/tk545/technologies_tech_note09186a00800d7276.shtml