QoS to improve video conference reliability?

[Mondial Apartments]

Dear Friends,

we are a small hotel providing internet access to our guests via an older Cisco Switch (Catalyst 2950). Of late, people have reported that video conferences frequently get interrupted, and we have observed that the bandwith certain clients get sometimes drops to abysmal levels. Presumably, our old switch offers no Quality of Service. Would an upgrade to a switch that has QoS, such as the Cisco 220 or 250 series, help ameliorate these problems? And would such a switch do so using default or easily-configured settings, as nobody in our company is an IT professional?

Thanks a lot for your input!
Chris

[marce1000]

 - FYI : https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/docs/quality-of-service-qos/qos-video/212134-Video-Quality-of-Service-QOS-Tutorial.html

 M.

[Joseph W. Doherty]

When it comes to QoS feature on the (very) old 2950 series, I recall (?) the -S (standard) models had little to none while the -E (enhanced) models had some QoS support, but, especially by current standards, very weak QoS support.

However, as you note no one in your company is an IT professional, QoS, alone, might not be a solution for you.

First, understand, what QoS allows is "management" of bandwidth.  With QoS, you determine how different application traffic obtains the bandwidth you do have.  Often this means, when there's insufficient bandwidth for all your traffic, you might insure some of your traffic gets the bandwidth it needs at the expense of other traffic.

RT (real-time) video, such as video conferencing, generally (for it to work at all, and especially well), must be provided the bandwidth it wants when it wants it.  (NB: BTW, such video traffic tends to be very variable in its moment-by-moment bandwidth needs.  Knowing what the average bandwidth usage of such video is important, but also knowing its maximum bandwidth usage is important too.)  Providing such guarantees is often what QoS can do, but again, the bandwidth must actually be available.

Also again, as QoS might take bandwidth from other active applications, you may need to consider the impact to them too.  For example, if you shift bandwidth to video conferencing, Internet browsing might become horrible.

The forgoing doesn't preclude QoS, alone, being a possible solution.  You should first be able to describe your traffic types, their bandwidth expectations, including how critical the timing is for providing such bandwidth.  (Bandwidth being available now is generally very critical for RT video, steaming video, not, although they might be using the same video codecs.)

Along with that, you might completely describe your existing network, its topology, both logically and physically, including what kind of wiring you're using for your wired Ethernet and what kind of wireless, if any, standards you're supporting.

With such in hand, then I, and others, could provide some recommendations/suggestions.

[Mondial Apartments]

Dear Joseph,

thank you very much for input, it is much appreciated.

As for our network topology, the network consists of the aforementioned Cisco switch, which serves as the central hub, with 16 guest rooms of our hotel connected directly to it. In the guest rooms there is a small switch and connected to each one is a smart TV (hardly ever used as such) and a Wi-Fi access point supporting the n standard.

Most clients are connected via Wi-Fi, some few via Ethernet. BTW, there have been no problems with video conferencing so far when people were connented via Ethernet. What's most important for us, especially these days, is that Zoom and Skype and other such applications function flawlessly, each such data stream probably requires 1.2 Mbit of bandwith (or more via Wi-Fi). Our connection to the internet has a bandwith of 150 Mbit downstream and 15 Mbit upstream; we suspect that a particular guest is frequently using up our entire upstream bandwith. We're considering an upgrade to an upstream bandwith of 20 Mbit or more.

We'd therefore need a central swith that fulfills the following requirements:

- 24 ports or more
- 100 Mbit connection to each guest room; 1000 Mbit connection to the internet router

- features to allocate adequate bandwith to video applications (QoS)

- option to prevent single users from monopolizing bandwidth

- manageable by competent users rather than professionals

- able to function in an unheated and dusty cellar room.

- costs no higher than 500 USD (w/o any taxes)

We'd be much obliged if you could recommend us something.

Thank you!

Best greetings

Chris

[Joseph W. Doherty]

"100 Mbit connection to each guest room; 1000 Mbit connection to the internet router"

Possibly finding a 24 port, or better, business grade switch, with only FE ports (and gig uplink), might be difficult.

For your needs, I would suggest considering even an unmanaged switch with your 24, or more, FE ports, and ideally with a gig uplink.  If such cannot be found, consider an unmanaged switch with all gig ports.

Reason I mention unmanaged switches, that keeps their cost way down, and low end (i.e. non-Enterprise), managed switches, likely wouldn't offer much in the way of features that would be really useful to you, except, perhaps, insuring gig ports to guests only allow 100 Mbps connections.

Where you'll likely benefit from "better" equipment would be a "router" between your switch and your Internet connection.  Especially one that can "shape" for your 15 Mbps up while supporting FQ (fair queuing).

Some of Cisco's low-end routers, such as the 800 series (and their later replacements) might be ideal for you.  Features often are very rich for their price (at least in the Cisco line-up).

I'm not current in such devices, but you might post another query looking for such router recommendations.

As to your other questions, support for the mentioned FQ goes a long way in keeping one user from monopolizing bandwidth, at least on the WAN.  LAN switches tend to be weak for doing such bandwidth management as their general solution is to just provide lots of bandwidth (which, by today's standards, a 2950 cannot do).

"manageable by competent users rather than professionals"

That's hard to qualify as so much depends on what you want the equipment to do.  Cannot get much better than a switch which cannot be managed.  Routing, QoS, wireless, FW rules, etc., can easily become complex.

Consider most can drive a car, but some less for changing a tire, some more less for changing a plug or air filter, possibly less for changing oil and oil filter, even much more less for replacing a piston.  How competent one needs to be depends on what you want or what needs doing.

"able to function in an unheated and dusty cellar room."

Equipment generally has, somewhere, specs for operating temperature ranges.  Dust can be problem if network equipment draws air through it (if so, provide enclosure with fan and replaceable air filter).

"costs no higher than 500 USD (w/o any taxes)"

An unmanaged switch, possibly under $200 (?), small router possibly under $300 (?).

"We'd be much obliged if you could recommend us something."

Again, I'm not really qualified to recommend such beyond the general recommendations, above.