On J-series Services Routers, you can configure virtual channels to limit traffic sent from a corporate headquarters to branch offices. Virtual channels might be required when the headquarters site has an expected aggregate bandwidth higher than that of the individual branch offices. The router at the headquarters site must limit the traffic sent to each branch office router to avoid oversubscribing their links.
You configure virtual channels on a logical interface. Each virtual channel has a set of eight queues with a scheduler and an optional shaper. You can use an output firewall filter to direct traffic to a particular virtual channel. For example, a filter can direct all traffic with a destination address for branch office 1 to virtual channel 1, and all traffic with a destination address for branch office 2 to virtual channel 2.
Although a virtual channel group is assigned to a logical interface, a virtual channel is not the same as a logical interface. The only features supported on a virtual channel are queuing, packet scheduling, and accounting. Rewrite rules and routing protocols apply to the entire logical interface.