Traffic Shaping Router

witnessmenow

Hi Guys,

I'm looking to get a router that priortises voice traffic, not overly worried about the rest of the spec, can anyone recomend one?

Thanks

Dardania

Something which I don't really beleieve myself, but the standard netopia that comes with eircom connections can do QoS...

Tell us more about your setup - connection to the internet type, up/down speeds, number & type of IP phones...

One way of shaping traffic is to get your ip phones to mark their outgoing packets with TOS tags, so that the router can recognise using the likes of diffserv, and prioritise the transmission of these packets - I do it at home, and it's quite effective...

witnessmenow

Its not just about QoS, its about bandwidth management too.

Its not for one particular setup, its for an IP PBX, the amount of trunks would be dependent on the speed of the boradband.

In our office here we are testing a linksys OGV200 (discontinued) and you'd be surprised the difference it makes. Setting up the QoS on the modem alone was basically doing nothing.

Dardania

In which case, you could start looking at something from Cisco, and use policy maps to shape outgoing traffic, after classifying it, and police incoming, after classifying it...

I'm planning on messing about with shaping/policing this weekend on a Cisco 871W - I'll see how it goes, and post back.

The difficult bit seems to be accurately classifying traffic - Cisco have NBAR to recognise traffic, but P2P seems to get misclassified as Skype or HTTP which has the result of scavenger traffic potentially getting a higher priority than it should...

witnessmenow

Yeah I was on cisco's live chat (useless btw), I rang their pre-sales line (slightly less useless, but still useless) and I sent them an email, where they have informed me nearly all their routers do QoS, So I've replied back that I need bandwidth management too so we'll see what they say, While I was at it I said I'd get in touch with netgear and D-link too.

Dardania

what you can do on their routers, as a purely observative exercise is activate netflow, to monitor what is passing through. Then you can create your marking policies, whcih ultimately ends up in a QoS policy...

If you were to go for a router, I beleive the defining factor for performance is how much traffic can the router examine, mark and police/shape before it starts dropping packets due to lack of CPU time, or memory. Memory is especially important if you're shaping from what I've read...

Some_Person

Mikrotik RB750
very Advanced
or Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with DD-WRT

accensi0n

witnessmenow wrote: »

Yeah I was on cisco's live chat (useless btw), I rang their pre-sales line (slightly less useless, but still useless) and I sent them an email, where they have informed me nearly all their routers do QoS, So I've replied back that I need bandwidth management too so we'll see what they say, While I was at it I said I'd get in touch with netgear and D-link too.

What's the difference between bandwidth management and QOS?

Jumpy

I think its

QoS = prioritisation
Bandwith management = set limits.

Dardania

Jumpy wrote: »

I think its

QoS = prioritisation
Bandwith management = set limits.

To elaborate on theory of bandwidth management, I found this explanation very useful, talking about two ways of performing it:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk543/tk545/technologies_tech_note09186a00800a3a25.shtml#policingvsshaping

With QoS, I think its about assessing the contents of the packet, its source, its destination etc., and then assigning a priority, so that it can be bandwidth managed. You could also throttle heavy users based o their data transfer rates over a period of time

noclee

Just to add voice is something you don't want to shape, as it adds latency. Police with strict priority and shape all other traffic with lower priority.

Tks,
Noclee.

witnessmenow

Some_Person wrote: »

Mikrotik RB750
very Advanced
or Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 with DD-WRT

Thanks for the Mikrotik link, looks like it might be exactly what i'm after.

FusionNet

I emailed Netgear to get to confirm a model that would suit you and this was their suggestion:

http://www.netgear.com/Products/RoutersandGateways/WirelessNRoutersandGateways/DGN3500.aspx

Ive used their routers and in fairness there very good...

witnessmenow

Much appreciated Fusion, I actually came across that in my travels too, its a little expensive but having a low setup time is attractive. What email address did you use because netgear never got back to me!

Has anyone used Wi-pipe.com ? I ordered the rb750g off them on Monday evening and it still hasn't shipped, I tried to ring them there today and no answer (and a full mailbox), I also emailed them after I got my confirmation email looking for a VAT invoice and I haven't got any response from that either. TBH im kinda worried about the whole thing, I ordered form them because they claimed to have in stock and they were in Ireland so i thought I would have it today or tomorrow worst case...

EDIT: Just got an email off Wi-pipe, its being sent today and I got the VAT invoice. Will keep you posted.

FusionNet

Hi Witness,

I used the standard sales email but as I am a supplier maybe i got lucky with the reply. It did take them about 5 days to reply though!!!

Think that router sells for about 120-150 euro max. They sent me an amazon link and its 109 pounds there.. Well worth it though I used that one recently and only took 2 mins to set up..

Some_Person

I've gotten a few Nanostations from Wi-Pipe before no problem, they must be busy.

witnessmenow

Got it yesterday.

Nice and small, a bit ugly though :P

Will have a go at setting it up over the weekend.

PogMoThoin

That Mikrotik RB750 is a serious piece of kit, You'll be very suprised

witnessmenow

Guys just to update.

Got the microtik, its fairly confusing to get your head around at first , but its a great device. Did exactly what we neeeded. very tempted to get one for myself for home now too, so i can priortise all traffic from my IP address :P

FusionNet

Id love that for the PS3.. Its a pain when you get lag because of an app on your PC running in the backround..