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Add SLA-Based Steering Profiles

An SLA-based steering profile is an SD-WAN traffic steering profile with service-level agreement (SLA) parameters and path failover criteria for WAN traffic, and, optionally, rate limiting parameters. CSO provides predefined SLA-based steering profiles that are tuned for specific application categories and traffic types, which you can use in an SD-WAN policy. You can also add customized SLA-based steering profiles in CSO.

Note:

SD-WAN Essentials service does not support SLA-based steering profiles.

To add a customized SLA-based steering profile:

  1. Select Configuration > SLA Based Steering Profiles (in Administration Portal) or Configuration > SD-WAN > SLA Based Profiles (in Customer Portal).

    The SLA Profiles page appears.

  2. Click the add icon (+).

    The Add SLA Profile page appears.

  3. Configure the parameters according to the guidelines provided in Table 1.
    Note:

    Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory.

  4. Click OK.

    You are returned to the SLA-Based Steering Profiles page and a confirmation message indicating that the SLA-based steering profile was added is displayed. The page refreshes to display the SLA-based steering profile that you added.

    Note:

    After you add an SLA-based steering profile, you must add an SD-WAN policy intent that references the SLA-based steering profile, so that profile parameters are applied to SD-WAN traffic.

Table 1: Add SLA Profile Settings

Field

Guideline

Name

Enter the name of the SLA-based steering profile, which is a unique string that can contain alphanumeric characters and hyphens (-); the maximum length is 15 characters.

Traffic Type Profile

Select a traffic type profile to apply the class-of-service configuration and priority to the SLA-based steering profile. You can select only traffic type profiles that are enabled.

SLA Configuration

Select whether you want to use predefined SLA thresholds or specify customized SLA parameters:

  • Use Recommended—Select this option if you want to specify an SLA threshold, which uses predefined SLA parameters for the steering profile.

  • Enter Custom—Select this option if you want to specify customized SLA parameters for the steering profile.

SLA Threshold

If you specified that an SLA threshold should be used, use the slider to select the predefined threshold to use for the SLA parameters in the steering profile:

  • Liberal: Use liberal (relaxed) SLA parameters for the steering profile. This is the default setting.

  • Baseline—Use the baseline SLA parameters for the steering profile.

  • Conservative—Use conservative (strict) SLA parameters for the steering profile.

Packet Loss

If you specified that customized SLA parameters should be used, enter the target packet loss percentage for the steering profile.

If the percentage of data packets dropped by the network (to manage congestion) exceeds the specified target packet loss percentage, then an SLA violation is reported.

RTT

If you specified that customized SLA parameters should be used, enter the target round-trip time (RTT), in milliseconds, for the steering profile.

If the RTT for a packet exceeds the specified target RTT, then an SLA violation is reported.

Jitter

If you specified that customized SLA parameters should be used, enter the target jitter, in milliseconds, for the steering profile.

If the jitter for data packets exceeds the specified target jitter, then an SLA violation is reported.

Path Selection Criteria

  

Path Preference

Displays Any, which means that either an MPLS or an Internet link can be used because the link is selected based on the SLA criteria. You cannot modify this field.

Path Failover Criteria

Select the failover criterion to use, which determines how links are switched when the active link fails to meet the SLA specified in the steering profile. When path failover occurs, the traffic is routed to a link that meets the SLA.

Choose one of the following options:

  • Does not meet one or more SLA parameters—The link is switched if any of the SLA parameters is violated.

  • Does not meet all SLA parameters—The link is switched only when all the SLA parameters are violated.

Advanced Configuration

You can optionally configure parameters for rate limiting the SD-WAN traffic for applications associated with the SLA-based steering profile.

Maximum Upstream Rate

Enter the maximum upstream rate (in Kbps) for all applications associated with the SLA-based steering profile.

Maximum Upstream Burst Size

Enter the maximum size (in bytes) of a steady stream of traffic sent at average rates that exceed the upstream rate limit for short periods.

Maximum Downstream Rate

Enter the maximum downstream rate (in Kbps) for all applications associated with the SLA-based steering profile.

Maximum Downstream Burst Size

Enter the maximum size (in bytes) of a steady stream of traffic sent at average rates that exceed the downstream rate limit for short periods.

Loss Priority

Select a loss priority based on which packets are dropped or retained when network congestion occurs. Packet drops are most likely when the loss priority is High and least likely when the loss priority is Low.

If you select None, which is the default, the loss priority is configured as Low.

SLA Sampling

You must specify the parameters related to SLA sampling, as explained in the following fields.

Session Sampling %

Enter the percentage of flow sessions for which the application quality of experience (AppQoE) probes should be sent. If you specify a 3% sampling rate, then 3 probes are sent for every 100 flow sessions.

For information about AppQoE, see Application Quality of Experience Overview in the CSO Administration Portal User Guide (available on the CSO Documentation page).

SLA-violation-count

Enter the number of times that the SLA can be violated before CSO considers that the AppQoE is affected. For example, if you specify a violation count of 10, then CSO considers the AppQoE to be affected if the SLA is violated 10 times.

Sampling Period

Enter the period (in seconds) for which the sampling packets are sent.

Switch-cool-Off-period

Enter the period (in seconds) for which CSO should stop the AppQoE probes, when a link switch takes place. For example, if you specify a period of 60 seconds, then CSO will wait for 60 seconds after a link switch before restarting the sending of AppQoE probes.

The default period is 120 seconds. This setting is used to prevent frequent switching of links.

See Post-Provisioning Tasks for Enterprise Hub and SD-WAN Spoke Sites.