QoS in IP networks

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 QoS in IP networks

Contents
• OSI
• Protocol Stack
• Port numbers
• TCP/UDP
• The need for QoS
• LTE Network QoS
• IP precedence,
• Differentiated services (DiffServ)
• Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS)

2
 Protocol Encapsulation

User Data
HOST A HOST B

APPLICATION User Data APPLICATION

PRESENTATION User Data PRESENTATION

SESSION User Data SESSION

TRANSPORT User Data TRANSPORT

NETWORK User Data NETWORK

LINK User Data LINK

PHYSICAL User Data PHYSICAL

NETWORK (Transmission Channel)

3
 Protocol Stack

Network
Data Network
Application Application
Message
Application Application
Message
Presentation Presentation
Message
Session Session
Segment
Transport TCP/UDP Transport
Packet Packet
Network (IP) Network Network
Frame Frame
Data Link(ATM/Ethernet) Data Link ATM Data Link
Signal Signal
Physical (SDH) Physical Physical

Host or End Relay or Intermediate Host or End

System (ES) System (IS) System (ES)

Layer 3- Switching

4
 Transport layer protocols

 TCP/IP is based on a four layer model

OSI 7 layer model TCP/IP

Application
Application layer
Presentation
Services
Session
Transport TCP UDP
ICMP IPv4, IPv6
Network IP
ARP/RARP
Ethernet/ATM/Frame Data Link
Data Link Relay etc

Physical Physical
SDH
5
 Port numbers

 Port numbers are used by TCP and UDP to identify the source and destination
application running in multi tasking systems.
 Dynamic port numbers are used by the client
 Well known port numbers are used by the server:
TCP 20 FTP Data
TCP 21 FTP
TCP 23 Telnet
TCP 25 SMTP

UDP 53 Domain
UDP 67 BOOTP Server
FTP Server

21

TCP UDP TCP UDP

IP IP

Ethernet Ethernet

6
 TCP

NETWORK
LAYER(3)

1 PACKET
3 2
PACKET SWITCH
3
SWITCH 1
PACKET 2 3 1

2
3 2 1 SWITCH
PACKET
1
PACKET
SWITCH
SWITCH
eNodeB

LTE: All services would be packet-switched

7
 User Datagram Protocol (UDP)

Source Port Indicates the port of the sending process. It is the port to
which replies are addressed.
Destination Port Specifies the port of the destination process on the
destination host.
Length The length (in bytes) of this user datagram, including the
header.
Checksum

8
 Layer 3 - Switching

0 4 8 16 19 24 31
VERS HLEN Service Type Total Length
Identification Flags Fragment Offset
Time To Live Protocol Header Checksum
Source IP Address
NETWORK
Destination IP Address LAYER(3)
IP Options (If any) Padding
DATA
...

1 PACKET
3 2
PACKET SWITCH
3
SWITCH 1
PACKET 2 3 1

2
3 2 1 SWITCH
PACKET
1
PACKET
SWITCH
SWITCH
eNodeB

LTE: All services would be packet-switched

9
 Layer 3 - Switching

0 4 8 16 19 24 31
VERS HLEN Service Type Total Length
Identification Flags Fragment Offset
Time To Live Protocol Header Checksum
Source IP Address
NETWORK
Destination IP Address LAYER(3)
IP Options (If any) Padding
DATA
...

128.2.7.9 126.2.7.9

PACKET
SWITCH

IP address = <network number><host number> IP address = <network number><host number>

128.2 being the network number

7.9 being the host number
10
 Address Classes

 IP addresses broken down into five Classes

 Only 3 are directly usable for host addresses
 High order bit rule defines class of address

Class Network.Host High Order Bits 1st Byte Nets Hosts

A N H H H 00000000 1-126 126 16M
B N N H H 10000000 128-191 16K 65K
C N N N H 11000000 192-223 2M 254
D Multicast 11100000 224-239 - -
E Reserved 11110000 240-255 - -

11
 LTE is all IP

HSS
S1
MME
Serving
Gateway

Network Test Server

Router / Gateway 10.X.XX.
X2 for Drive testing

192.128.10.101

192.128.10.0

PCI
GCID
VLAN ID
Host address: 192.128.10.1
Mask : 255.255.255.0
Default Gateway: 192.128.10.101
12
 IP datagram

0 4 8 16 19 24 31
VERS HLEN Service Type Total Length
Identification Flags Fragment Offset
Time To Live Protocol Header Checksum
Source IP Address
Destination IP Address
IP Options (If any) Padding
DATA
...

13
 The need for QoS

QoS developments in IP networks is inspired by new types of

applications:
–VoIP, VoIPtrunks
•Low bit rate variability, strict delay requirements, jitter
sensitive
–Audio/video streaming
•Low/medium bit rate variability, elastic delay and jitter
requirements
–Networked virtual environments, interactive gaming
•Medium bit rate variability, delay intolerant, jitter
sensitive,error intolerant

14
 3G Services and QoS Classes

RT
Telephony
Video Telephony
VoIP •Each application is
DELAY SENSITIVE

Radio Streaming Video different in Nature.

Some are highly
Web Browsing Location Services Computer Games
delay
E-mail Server Backups
NRT
Casual Critical
INTEGRITY

VoIP requires very low jitter, a one-way

delay in the order of 150 milliseconds

15
 EPC
Http VoIP Providing low loss, latency and jitter for
FTP streaming some traffic aggregate means ensuring
SMTP
that the aggregate sees no (or very
NON REAL REAL TIME small) queues.
TIME SERVICES
SERVICES

Port Number Port Number

TCP UDP

IP

16
 LTE Network QoS

LTE-Uu S1-U S5
Serving P-
PDN
Gateway Gateway
EPS Bearer External Bearer

Radio Bearer S1 - Bearer S5 - Bearer

17
 Packet classification
Buffering issues may be overcome by enabling separate voice and video data
queues in the network switches and routers.
Separate queues allow time critical data such as audio and video to be transmitted
in a priority fashion.

Queuing is enabled by some type of packet classification or prioritization scheme.

Several different schemes currently exist for providing priority to network packets.
These include:

• Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP),

• IP precedence,
• Differentiated services (DiffServ)
• Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS).

18
 The Original IPv4 ToS Byte
0 4 8 16 19 24 31
VER HLE
S N
ToS Total Length Precedence was a 3 bit field which
Flag
Identification
s
Fragment Offset treats high priority packets as more
Time To Live Protocol Header Checksum important than other packets.
Source IP Address
Destination IP Address If a router is congested and needs to
IP Options (If any) Padding discard some packets, it will discard
DATA
packets having lowest priority first.
...

Although precedence field was part

of version 4, it was never used.

The 3 bits restrict the number of

possible priority classes to eight.

Control classes are usually reserved

for router-generated packets such as
routing updates, ICMP messages

19
 DiffServ Codepoint Field
0 4 8 16 19 24 31
VERS HLEN ToS Total Length
Identification Flags Fragment Offset
Time To Live Protocol Header Checksum
Source IP Address
Destination IP Address
IP Options (If any) Padding
DATA
...

The modern redefinition of the ToS field is a six-bit Differentiated Services Code
Point (DSCP) field and a two-bit Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) field.
Class Selector

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) Explicit Congestion
Notification

20
DS routing

DS requires routers
that support queue
scheduling and
management to
prioritize outbound
packets and control
the queue depth to
minimize congestion
in the
network.

21
 DiffServ
DiffServ relies on a mechanism to classify and mark packets as belonging to a
specific class.

DiffServ-aware routers implement per-hop behaviors (PHBs), which define the

packet-forwarding properties associated with a class of traffic.

22
 Classification and marking
Traffic may be classified by many different parameters, such as source
address, destination address or port numbers and assigned to a specific traffic
class.

Packet classification and policing can be carried out at the edge of the network
by edge router

23
 Different traffic classes
In theory, a network could have up to 64 (i.e. 26) different traffic classes using
different DSCPs.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) Explicit Congestion
Notification

In practice, however, most networks use the following commonly defined Per-Hop
Behaviors:

Default PHB (Per hop behavior)— which is typically best-effort traffic

Expedited Forwarding (EF) PHB— dedicated to low-loss, low-latency traffic
Assured Forwarding (AF) PHB— gives assurance of delivery under prescribed
conditions
Class Selector PHBs— which maintain backward compatibility with the IP
Precedence field.

24
 Default PHB
Essentially, any traffic that does not meet the requirements of any of the other
defined classes is placed in the default PHB.

Typically, the default PHB has best-effort forwarding characteristics. The

recommended DSCP for the default PHB is 000000B (0).

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) Explicit Congestion
Notification

25
 Expedited Forwarding (EF) PHB
Expedited Forwarding (EF) PHB
The IETF defines Expedited Forwarding behavior in RFC 3246. The EF PHB has
the characteristics of low delay, low loss and low jitter. These characteristics are
suitable for voice, video and other real time services.

EF traffic is often given strict priority queuing above all other traffic classes.

The recommended DSCP for expedited forwarding is 101110B (46 or 2EH

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) Explicit Congestion
Notification

EF PHB is especially suitable for applications (like VoIP) that require very low
packet loss, guaranteed bandwidth, low delay and low jitter.

26
 DiffServ Per-Hop Behaviours

Expedite Forwarding PHB (EF-PHB)

Provide guaranteed bandwidth low delay and jitter.
Strict admission control: Non-conformant traffic is dropped or
shaped.
EF traffic should not be influenced by the other traffic classes.

•Each PHB is mapped to a

Rate I/F
queue EF Q1 limiting SP shaping
•EF is served as Strict Q2 W1
AF4
Priority AF3 Q3 W2
•Other PHBs are served as W3
WFQ
AF2 Q4
WFQ W4
•Lowest priority queues are AF1 Q5 W5
controlled by a WFQ BE Q6
scheduler (weights: w1-w5)

27
 Assured Forwarding

Assured forwarding allows the operator to provide assurance of delivery as long

as the traffic does not exceed some subscribed rate.

Traffic that exceeds the subscription rate faces a higher probability of being
dropped if congestion occurs.

IP datagram
Number of bits
4 4 8 variable

Version
Header
Length
Type of
Service
... Data
The AFxy PHB defines four AFx
classes: AF1, AF2, AF3, and AF4.
6 MSBs LSBs are not assigned

PHB determines the

DSCP Priority policy: Each class is assigned a certain
EF – strict priority
queue. EF AF4 – highest among AF amount of buffer space and
AF1 – lowest among AF
AF4 BE – lowest priority interface bandwidth, dependent on
AF3 the SLA with the Service
AF2 Provider/policy).
DSCP AF1 Queue based on PHB
Classifier
switch BE

28
 Assured Forwarding (AF)

The AF behavior group defines four separate AF classes with Class 4 having the
highest priority.

Within each class, packets are given a drop precedence (high, medium or low, where
higher precedence means more dropping).

The combination of classes and drop precedence yields twelve separate DSCP
encodings from AF11 through AF43 .

higher precedence means more dropping highest priority

29
 DiffServ Per-Hop Behaviours

Assured Forwarding PHB (AF-PHB)

•Four classes are defined that provide different forwarding
guarantees. Within each class, there are three drop
precedence.
•Non-conformant traffic is remarked.

Weighted Fair Queuing EF Q1 Rate

limiting SP I/F
shaping
(WFQ)assigns a weight Q2
AF4 W1
to each flow, which W2
AF3 Q3
determines the transmit W3
WFQ
AF2 Q4
order for queued W4
Q5
packets. In this AF1 W5

scheme, lower weights BE Q6

are served first.

30
Class Selector (CS) PHB

Prior to DiffServ, IPv4 networks could use the Precedence

field in the TOS byte of the IPv4 header to mark priority
traffic.

If a packet is received from a non-DiffServ aware router

that used IP precedence markings, the DiffServ router can
still understand the encoding as a Class Selector code
point

Class Selector

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) Explicit Congestion
Notification

31
 Summary

Different Per-Hop Behaviours (PHB)are defined for

each traffic class.
DSCP

DSCP EF

DSCP AF4

DSCP AF3

DSCP
AF2
Operator
AF1
DSCP configurable
BE
DSCP
mapping
6 Default PHBs
corresponding to the IP
egress scheduling queues
32
EPS Bearer

33
 User plane - Bearers

LTE-Uu S1-U S5
Serving P-
PDN
Gateway Gateway

End to End Bearer

EPS Bearer External Bearer

Radio Bearer S1 - Bearer S5 - Bearer

E-RAB

Evolved Packet switched System

34
 Bearers

LTE-Uu S1-U S5
Serving P-
PDN PDN
Gateway Gateway

Packet
Scheduling Default Bearer
Dedicated Bearer
Default EPS Bearer :
Does not allocate any
Be established during Attach Process
additional IP address to
Allocate IP address to UE
UE
Does not have specifc QoS (only Nominal QoS is applied).
Is linked to a specified
Packet default EPS bearer
Scheduling Dedicated Bearer
Dedicated Bearer
Normally be established during the call setup after idle mode.
Have a specific (usually guaranteed) QoS

Default bearers are created on a per PDN

Packet
Scheduling Default Bearer basis.

Each default bearer comes with an IP

Packet
Scheduling Dedicated Bearer address

35
 Bearers-QoS Class Identifier

LTE-Uu S1-U S5
Serving P-
PDN
Gateway Gateway

Packet
Scheduling
Default Bearer

Packet
Scheduling Dedicated Bearer

A packet with higher

priority can be
expected to be
scheduled before a
packet with lower
priority.

36
Traffic Flow Templates (TFT)
Non Real
Real Time
Time

Application Application

Port Numbers

TCP UDP

IP

37
 Traffic Flow Templates (TFT)
Each EPS bearer is associated with a traffic flow template (TFT).

This comprises a set of packet filters, one for each of the packet flows that
make up the bearer.

Traffic flow template is always associated with dedicated bearer and while
default bearer may or may not have TFT.

EPS Bearer ID
Packet
Packet
Dedicated
filters Data Bearer 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8
EPS bearer
filters

Packet Packet
Data Bearer 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8
filters filters

• Source address (with subnet mask)

• IP protocol number (TCP, UDP)
• Destination port
• Source port range P-
• Type of Service (TOS) (IPv4) Gateway
• Flow-Label (IPv6 only)

38
 Traffic Flow Templates (TFT)
0 4 8 16 19 24 31
VERS HLEN Service Type Total Length
Identification Flags Fragment Offset
Time To Live Protocol Header Checksum
Source IP Address
Destination IP Address
IP Options (If any) Padding
DATA
...

EPS Bearer ID
Packet
Packet
Dedicated
filters Data Bearer 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8
EPS bearer
filters

Packet Packet
Data Bearer 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8
filters filters

• Source address (with subnet mask)

• IP protocol number (TCP, UDP)
• Destination port
• Source port range P-
• Type of Service (TOS) (IPv4) Gateway
• Flow-Label (IPv6 only)

39
 Traffic Flow Templates (TFT)
TFT is set of all packet filter associated with an EPS bearer

ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST

EPS Bearer ID
P- Dedicated
Data Bearer 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8 GTP-U Tunnel 8
Gateway EPS bearer
The parameters include:
• The source IP address
• The destination IP address
• The source port number
• The destination port number
• The protocol identification (i.e., TCP or UDP).

Up Link Traffic Flow Template (UL TFT) : - Set of uplink packet

filters in TFT

The parameters include:

• The source IP address
• The destination IP address
The Uplink TFT is established by • The source port number
the PCRF and sent to the UE in the • The destination port number
• The protocol identification (i.e., TCP or UDP).
context setup messages. DL
filtering is done in the P-GW and Downlink Traffic Flow Template (DL TFT) : - Set of downlink
packet filters in TFT
it's TFT is also established in the
PCRF

40
ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST

ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST

1Pv4-
10.1.10.6 Ipv4 address : 10.1.10.6
Ipv4 mask 255.0.0.0

Data Bearer 6 GTP-U Tunnel 6 GTP-U Tunnel 6

Dedicated EPS bearer

EPS Bearer ID = 6

41
ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST

ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST

PORT
Packet Filter
1Pv4- ID=8
10.1.10.6

Data Bearer 6 GTP-U Tunnel 6 GTP-U Tunnel 6

Dedicated EPS bearer

EPS Bearer ID = 6

42
 TWO PACKET FILTERS

MME
ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST

TWO PACKET FILTERS

Application 1 Application 2
The MME shall initiate the dedicated bearer context activation
procedure by sending an ACTIVATE DEDICATED EPS
BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST message and start the timer
TCP T3485

EPS ID =6
LINK EPS BEARER = 5

Packet Filter 0 Packet Filter 1

Packet Filter ID=0 Packet Filter ID=8 Data Bearer 5 GTP-U Tunnel 5 GTP-U Tunnel 5
IP address 10.1.8.6 IP address 10.1.8.6
Port 61000 Port 31050

Data Bearer 6 GTP-U Tunnel 6 GTP-U Tunnel 6

DEDICATED EPS BEARER

43
Activate Dedicated EPS Bearer Context Accept

Activate Dedicated EPS Bearer Context

Request

Activate Dedicated EPS Bearer Context

Accept MME
Upon receipt of the Activate
Dedicated EPS Bearer
Context Accept message, the
MME shall stop the timer
T3485

The linked EPS Bearer Identity included in the ACTIVATE

DEDICATED EPS BEARER CONTEXT REQUEST message indicates
to the UE to which default bearer, IP address and PDN the dedicated
bearer is linked.

44
 Activate Dedicated EPS Bearer Context Reject

Activate Dedicated EPS Bearer Context

Request

Activate Dedicated EPS Bearer Context TFT’s contain packet filtering

Reject information to identify and
map packets to specific
ESM cause that typically indicates one of the following values: bearers.
The parameters include:
#26: insufficient resources • The source IP address
#31: request rejected, unspecified
#41: semantic error in the Traffic Flow Templates TFT operation
• The destination IP address
#42: syntactical error in the Traffic Flow Templates TFT operation • The source port number
#43: invalid EPS bearer identity
#44: semantic error(s) in packet filter(s)
• The destination port
#45: syntactical error(s) in packet filter(s) or number
#95 – 111: protocol errors
• The protocol identification
(i.e., TCP or UDP).

45
Multiprotocol Label Switching

46
 MPLS

MPLS is designed to
bring the speed of OSI layer 2, the
link/switching layer, up to layer 3, the
network protocol layer.

Each packet is assigned a routing label

based upon several
factors including the packet priority and the
ultimate packet destination.

MPLS operates at an OSI Model layer that is generally considered to lie

between traditional definitions of Layer 2 (Data Link Layer) and Layer 3
(Network Layer), and thus is often referred to as a "Layer 2.5" protocol

47
 MPLS header

• A 20-bit label value. A label with the value of 1 represents the router alert label.
• 3-bit Traffic Class field for QoS (quality of service) priority (experimental) and
ECN (Explicit Congestion Notification).
• 1-bit bottom of stack flag. If this is set, it signifies that the current label is the
last in the stack.
• 8-bit TTL (time to live) field

48
 Label edge router
A label edge router (LER, also known as edge LSR) is a router that operates at
the edge of an MPLS network and acts as the entry and exit points for the
network. LERs respectively, push an MPLS label onto an incoming packet and
pop it off the outgoing packet. Alternatively,

GSM GSM
E1 E1

LER MPLS network LER

3G ATM 3G ATM

IP Network IP Network
LTE- LTE-
Ethernet MPLS supports the transport of a wide range of layer 2 Ethernet
and layer 3 services, including TDM,
ATM, and IP, and is thus able to support the migration
from from legacy (TDM and ATM) to IP based RANs

49
 Label switch router (LSR)
A MPLS router that performs routing based only on the label is called a label
switch router (LSR)

As your corporate data

enters the carrier
network, a label is
GSM attached to each
MPLS network packet.
E1
This label uniquely
identifies your Virtual
LER
Label switch router LER Private Network (VPN)
3G ATM in a shared
infrastructure and keeps
it private. 

Upon reaching its

IP Network
LTE- destination, the label is
Ethernet removed, returning the
data packet to its
original state. 50
 Packet-forwarding decisions

• In an MPLS network, data packets are assigned labels.

• Packet-forwarding decisions are made solely on the contents of this

label, without the need to examine the packet itself.

• This allows one to create end-to-end circuits across any type of

transport medium, using any protocol.

51
 Label Stack
•MPLS IP packets can carry anywhere from 1, 2, 3,  .  .  .  .
up to “m” labels,
•Only the top of the stack is accessible to the router
•The bottom label is Label 1, and the top label is Label m
•Label 1 refers to the last router in the path, and Label 2
bottom label Label 1 refers to the next hop router
•The “S” bit is set to 1 for the bottom label, and to 0 for all
other labels

52
 Label Stack
As the IP packet moves through the route:
 
1)      The ingress PE router adds two labels to the packet, defining two LSP’s – one
to the final PE router, and one to the next hop router
2)      The next hop router receives the packet, pops Label 2 and adds a new Label 2
that refers to the next hop router – this repeats until the final PE router is reached
3)      the final router is a PE router, which pops both Label 2 and then Label 1, and
sends the pure IP packet out it’s egress port and to the CE router

ingress

1.adds two labels

final PE router, and
one to the next hop router
53
 Label Stack
When the last label is popped from a packet's label stack (resulting in the stack being
emptied), further processing of the packet is based on the packet's network layer
header.
The LSR which pops the last label off the
TCP UDP stack must therefore be able to identify the
TCP UDP
packet's network layer protocol.   Since the
ICMP label itself says nothing of the protocol, the ICMP
IPv4 Layer 3 PE router must maintain a cross-reference IPv4 Layer 3
of the label number vs network layer
ARP
protocol. ARP
Ethernet Layer 2   Ethernet Layer 2
SDH Layer 1 SDH Layer 1

ingress
MPLS Network

54
 Label Stack
When a router in an MPLS network receives an unlabeled
packet, it reverts to ordinary IP routing protocols.
 

TCP UDP TCP UDP

ICMP ICMP
IPv4 Layer 3 IPv4 Layer 3

ARP NO LABEL ARP

Ethernet Layer 2 Ethernet Layer 2
DATA
SDH Layer 1 SDH Layer 1

ingress
MPLS Network

55
 Summary

LER -push an MPLS label onto an incoming packet and pop it off the
outgoing packet

label edge routers (LER) label edge routers (LER)

Labels are distributed

between LERs and
LSRs using the “Label Routers that perform routing based only on
Distribution Protocol” the label are called label switch routers
(LSR).

56