Shaping Average / Peak vs. Policing

From: Joe Gagznos (joegagznos@comcast.net)
Date: Tue Jul 04 2006 - 21:44:03 ART


I am trying to find another way to limit outbound traffic through an
interface similar in manner to policing. I understand that functionally the
two are different. With shaping you are going to be queuing excess traffic
to a predetermined rate where with policing you are going to be executing
some kind of action on traffic that exceeds the contract (usually dropping).

For comparison purposes, I have configured shaping and policing on two
separate subinterfaces in the following manner:

interface Ethernet0/0.1
 encapsulation dot1Q 10
 ip address 10.1.1.1 255.255.255.0
 service-policy output shape

interface Ethernet0/0.2
 encapsulation dot1Q 20
 ip address 10.1.2.1 255.255.255.0
 service-policy output police

Both interfaces are configured to limit traffic to no more than 2.5 Mbps as
follows:

policy-map police
  class class-default
   police 2500000 conform-action transmit exceed-action drop

policy-map shape
  class class-default
   shape average 2500000

What I find is that the shaping interface initializes the parameters as
follows:

R1#sh policy-map interface e0/0.1
 Ethernet0/0.1

  Service-policy output: shape

    Class-map: class-default (match-any)
      19 packets, 1729 bytes
      5 minute offered rate 0 bps, drop rate 0 bps
      Match: any
      Traffic Shaping
           Target/Average Byte Sustain Excess Interval Increment
             Rate Limit bits/int bits/int (ms)
(bytes)
          2500000/2500000 15000 60000 60000 24 7500

        Adapt Queue Packets Bytes Packets Bytes Shaping
        Active Depth Delayed Delayed Active
        - 0 19 1729 0 0 no

A couple things to note here - Be is initialized to the same value as Bc of
60000 (or 7500 bytes). The byte limit is 15000 bytes, though. This must
mean that the byte limit is initialized to Bc+Be=15000. With a 24 ms
interval, does this mean that the interface will send 5 Mbps (15000 * 8 bits
/ byte * 1 sec/.024 = 5000000) instead of the contracted 2.5 Mbps? If
shape average is allowing the interface to transmit Bc+Be each interval,
then how does this differ from configuring shape peak which accomplishes the
same thing?

With policing it appears that things are much more straightforward.

R1#sh policy-map int e0/0.2
 Ethernet0/0.2

  Service-policy output: police

    Class-map: class-default (match-any)
      107 packets, 7473 bytes
      5 minute offered rate 0 bps, drop rate 0 bps
      Match: any
      police:
          cir 2500000 bps, bc 78125 bytes
        conformed 63 packets, 4305 bytes; actions:
          transmit
        exceeded 0 packets, 0 bytes; actions:
          drop
        conformed 0 bps, exceed 0 bps

Thanks for any response!

Joe Gagznos



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