Hierarchical Policers on ACX Series Routers Overview
On ACX Series routers, two-level ingress hierarchical policing is supported. Single-level policers define a single bandwidth profile that is used by multiple traffic flows with different priorities. Two-level policers enable a single bandwidth profile to be optimally used for multiple traffic flows, based on bandwidth and priority needs of a network. Typically, multiple traffic flows can share a single policer instance. With single-level policers, you cannot adminster the method using which the committed information rate (CIR) and the peak information rate (PIR) values specified in the bandwidth profile are shared across different flows. For example, in a certain network deployment, you might want an equal or even distribution of CIR across the individual flows. In such a scenario, you cannot accomplish this requirement using single-level policers and need to configure aggregate or hierarchical policers.
Hierarchical policers is not applicable on ACX5048 and ACX5096 routers.
Hierarchical policers control the sharing of an aggregate traffic rate across multiple micro-flows, which constitute the aggregate flow or the macro-flow. Micro-flows are defined and matched using firewall filter rules and the action of these rules point to a macro-policer. This macro- policer or aggregate policer determines the amount of aggregate bandwidth that can be used by the micro-flows that are associated with it. You can control the bandwidth to be utilized among the micro-flows in different ways.
The hierarchical policing mechanism on ACX routers is different from the hierarching policing capability supported on MX Series routers. On MX Series routers, with a hierarchical policer, only one child or subordinate policer can be configured under a parent, top-level policer, whereas on ACX Series routers, you can aggregate and specify multiple child policers under a single parent policer. The hierarchical policing methodology on ACX routers is also called aggregate policing.
Policers are used to enforce bandwidth profiles on the transmitted traffic. A bandwidth profile is configured for each user based on the service level agreement (SLA) and the subscription plan that has been requested by the user from the service or enterprise provider. A bandwidth profile is defined using the following parameters:
Committed information rate (CIR) denoted in bits per second (bps).
Committed burst size (CBS) denoted in bytes.
Excess information rate (EIR) denoted in bps.
Excess burst size (EBS) denoted in bytes.
Color mode (CM) can contain only one of two possible values, color-blind or color-aware. In color-aware mode, the local router can assign a higher packet loss priority, but cannot assign a lower packet loss priority. In color-blind mode, the local router ignores the preclassification of packets and can assign a higher or lower packet loss priority.
A policer is then used to enforce the bandwidth profile and perform different actions, depending on whether a certain packet confirms to the attributes in the bandwidth profile or does not satisfy the values in the configured bandwidth profile. Hierarchical policers can be considered to be an alternative technique for hierarchical queuing and shaping. However, a few differences exist between the operations that a hierarchical policer performs when matched against the processes that a hierarchical scheduler performs.
Hierarchical scheduler enables fine-grained bandwidth sharing in terms of percentages of the available bandwidth, whereas hierarchical policing only enables a coarse-grained bandwidth sharing based on the absolute micro-flow values of CIR and EIR. Hierarchical policing enables the packet loss priority (PLP) and also the forwarding class to be modified in certain cases, depending on whether the packet is confirming, exceeding, or violating the particular bandwidth profile. Hierarchical scheduler does not cause any modifications to the PLP or forwarding class values of a packet. Modifications are performed only for violating packets.
ACX routers do not support hierarchical queuing and shaping. Ingress hierarchical policers can work in conjunction with ingress, egress, or both ingress and egress hierarchical queues. For example, a two-level ingress hierarchical policer combined with a two-level egress queuing framework results in a four-level CoS capability.