Differentiated

Services
(DiffServ)

Submitted To:
Prof. Mark Indelicato
Table of Contents

Introduction 1
Traffic Terminology 1
The DiffServ Model 2
DiffServ at Work in the Network 4
DiffServ over MPLS 5
DiffServ over MPLS benefits 6
References 7
1. Introduction

The different networking services like VoIP, video conference, file transfer
etc have different requirements in terms of packet delays, packet loss,
bandwidth, availability etc. Also the various technologies used to provide
these services at different speeds because of the unequal bandwidths,
processing delays, queuing delays and drops. This can also be seen from
the users’ aspect as different customers have requirements of different
bandwidth for transporting their traffic. And so in order to provide the
users with kind of service as agreed in the Service Level Agreement (SLA)
and to make sure that the most important traffic gets the highest
priority, organizations started working on Quality of Service (QoS). For
delivering Quality of Service, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF),
in 1998 published Request for Comments (RFC) 2475, which defined an
architecture for DiffServ.

“Differentiation is the operative word here, because before you can

provide a higher quality of service to any particular customer,
applications, or protocol, you must classify the traffic into classes and
then determine the way in which to handle the various traffic classes as
traffic moves throughout the network.”1

2. Traffic Terminology

Flow (or microflow) is a sequence of packets identified by source and

destination IP addresses, protocol identifier (for example, TCP and UDP)
and source and destination port numbers.
Traffic stream is a collection of flows with a common set of parameters
(for example, the same port number and the same source and
destination network).
Traffic profile specifies typical properties of a traffic stream (average
rate and burstiness). Provisioning should be performed based on traffic
profiles and the importance of traffic streams.
Traffic aggregate is a collection of all flows that require the same
service. A service is implemented using different QoS mechanisms (a
QoS mechanism implements a per-hop behavior). The DiffServ field (DS
field) is the former 8-bit Type of Service field. The main difference is that
the DSCP supports more classes (64) than IP precedence (8).
Behavior Aggregate (BA) is a collection of packets with the same DS
code point crossing a link in a particular direction.
Per-Hop Behavior (queuing in a node) externally observable forwarding
behavior applied at a DS-compliant node to a DS behavior aggregate.
PHB groups are classified into the following four:
• Express Forwarding (EF): It can be considered the premium and
highest priority traffic
• Assured Forwarding (AF): Multiple AF types and AF precedence
can be used with other PHB groups, or by itself to implement the
“Olympic Service” consisting of three service classes: Gold, Silver
and Bronze.
• Class Selector (CS) : This group has backwards compatibility with
the ToS/IP Precedence Solution
• Default Forwarding (DF) – Best effort
PHB Mechanism is a specific algorithm or operation (e.g., queuing
discipline) that is implemented in a node to realize a set of one or more
per-hop behaviors.
Packet Classification - Packet classification, or marking, occurs via
Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP) values. Notably, all
classification and QoS revolves around the DSCP in the DiffServ model.
The DSCP consists of the six most significant bits of the Differentiated
Services-field, which supersedes the ToS byte within the packet header.
This six-bit DSCP supports up to 64 (2^6) distinct service classes and, as
such, enables the network device to map these service classes to the
appropriate operator-specified forwarding treatments.
DS code point is a specific value of the DSCP portion of the DS field,
used to select a PHB (Per-Hop Behavior; forwarding and queuing method)
DS field is the IPv4 header ToSoctet or the IPv6 Traffic Class octet when
interpreted in conformance with the definition given in RFC2474. The bits
of the DSCP field encode the DS code point, while the remaining bits are
currently unused.
There are three IETF standards describing the purpose of those eight
bits:
 RFC 791 includes specification of the ToS field where the high-order
three bits are used for IP precedence. The other bits are used for delay,
throughput, reliability and cost.
RFC 1812 modifies the meaning of the ToS field by removing any
meaning from the five low-order bits (those bits should all be zero).
RFC 2474 replaces the ToS field with the DS field where the six high-
order bits are used for the DSCP. The remaining two bits are currently
not used. Each DSCP value identifies a BA. Each BA is assigned a PHB.
Each PHB is implemented using the appropriate QoS mechanism or a
set of QoS mechanisms.

1. The DiffServ Model

The DiffServ protocol provides a framework that makes possible the

operation of scalable service discrimination over the Internet. The
DiffServ model classifies services associated with traffic classes. Traffic
classes are based on the value of the DiffServ Code Point. The main
advantage of the DiffServ model over IntServ model is that it provides
scalability and a similar level of QoS, without doing it on a per-flow basis.
The network simply identifies a class (not application) of the packet and
applies the appropriate per-hop behavior (QoS mechanism).
The classification of packets takes place at the edge of the network, by
assigning a value to the DS-fields of the packets according to their class.
In the middle of the network, packets are buffered and scheduled based
on their DS-fields by Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED) and
Weighted Round Robin (WRR).
The DiffServ model describes services and allows for more user-defined
services to be used in a DiffServ-enabled network. A class can be
identified as a single application or, as in most cases; it can be identified
based on source or destination IP address. The idea is for the network to
recognize a class without having to receive any request from
applications. This allows the QoS mechanisms to be applied to other
applications that do not have the RSVP functionality, which is the case for
99% of applications that use IP.
The introduction of the DiffServ Code Point (DSCP) replaces the IP
precedence but maintains interoperability with non-DS compliant devices
(those that still use IP precedence). Because of this backward-
compatibility DiffServ can be gradually deployed in large networks. The
DSCP
 Fig.1 ToS byte before DiffServ

Fig.2 ToS byte after DiffServ

DiffServ AF Codepoint Table

DSC Bina Decim

P ry al
Defa 0000
0
ult 00
0010
CS1 8
00
0010
AF11 10
10
0011
AF12 12
00
0011
AF13 14
10
0100
CS2 16
00
 0100
AF21 18
10
0101
AF22 20
00
0101
AF23 22
10
0110
CS3 24
00

0110
AF31 26
10
0111
AF32 28
00
0111
AF33 30
10
1000
CS4 32
00
1000
AF41 34
10
1001
AF42 36
00
1001
AF43 38
10
1010
CS5 40
00
1011
EF 46
10
1100
CS6 48
00
1110
CS7 56
00

2. DiffServ at Work in the Network

“Figure below gives a pictorial overview of this end-to-end architecture.

For true QoS, the entire IP path that a packet travels must be DiffServ
enabled. An example service policy-EF gets 10 percent, gold 40 percent,
silver 30 percent, bronze 10 percent, and best effort traffic (default
class/PHB) the remaining 10 percent of the bandwidth. Gold, silver, and
bronze could be mapped to AF classes AF1, AF2, and AF3 for example.
This can be enforced in any part of the cloud, including end-to-end.”2

Fig.3 DiffServ Architecture

Components of a DS domain are DS ingress nodes, DS interior nodes (in

the core), and DS egress nodes. An ingress or egress node may connect
two DS domains together. Functionally, all DS ingress and egress nodes
can be categorized as a boundary nodes, since they act as a demarcation
point between the DS-domain and the non-DS-aware (L2-LAN, etc.)
network.
The main function of DS boundary node is traffic conditioning. A traffic
conditioner typically classifies the incoming packets into pre-defined
aggregates, meters them to determine compliance to traffic parameters
(and determines if the packet is in profile, or out of profile), marks them
appropriately by writing/re-writing the DSCP, and shapes (buffers to
achieve a target flow rate) or drops the packet in case of congestion. For
example, suppose VoIP traffic arrives at the edge of the network and the
edge routers marks the VoIP packets with a DSCP value of 46. From this
point forward, VoIP traffic will receive Expedited Forwarding treatment
 inside the network, ensuring that VoIP traffic. The routers in the core of
network forward the packets based on the DSCP value of the packet.

3. DiffServ over MPLS

“Multi-Protocol Labeling Switching (MPLS) provides bandwidth

management for aggregates through network routing control according
to the labels in (encapsulating) packet headers.
MPLS is one of several initiatives to enable delivery on the promise of a
converged network.”3 MPLS combines the features of Layer-2 switching
and Layer-3 routing together, MPLS provides the following benefits:
• “Enhanced scalability through switching technology
• Class-of-service (CoS)- and Quality-of-service (QoS)-based services
(Modified to incorporate DiffServ support)
• Internet protocol (IP)-over-asynchronous transfer mode (ATM)
overlay model and its associated management overhead
• Interoperability from a standards-based solution
• Traffic-engineering capabilities”1
MPLS specifies ways that Layer 3 traffic can be mapped to connection-
oriented Layer 2 transports like ATM and Frame Relay. Each IP packet is
labeled to contain routing information in order to assign explicit paths to
various classes of traffic by the router. The traffic engineering and other
techniques offered by MPLS helps boost IP routing efficiency.
To support DiffServ over MPLS packets with a variety of DSCP values
need to get the proper QoS at each LSR in the network. There are two
methods that are used to convey information to the Link Switching
Routers (LSR) in the MPLS Header:
a) EXP inferred PHB Scheduling Class LSPs (E-LSP)
b) Label inferred PHB Scheduling Class LSPs (L-LSPs)

1. DiffServ over MPLS benefits

DiffServ and MPLS are independent of each other or putting it differently,

both these technologies are orthogonal and complement each other
beautifully. The main advantages of DiffServ over MPLS are:
1. “Flows could be isolated using MPLS LSPs which would complement
the QoS provided
by DiffServ QoS mechanisms.
2. MPLS protection, be it path or local, would further strengthen the
QoS guarantees, for which the ISPs can charge extra.
3. MPLS preemption can similarly be used for giving higher priority to
high paying customers or high-priority traffic.
4. Looking at it from another perspective, MPLS protection and
preemption adds finer level of QoS granularity to DiffServ, even allowing
application level granularity. For example, in a pure DiffServ network all
flows belonging to say AF11would get the same service (except in the
cases of PHB promotion or demotion). But with MPLS, flows belonging to
AF11 can be treated differently with protection and/or preemption
enabled for some of the flows belonging to the same PHB.
5. Provisioning in DiffServ networks can be made dynamic with the
use of RSVP-TE signaling in DiffServ over MPLS networks. (For static
provisioning, statistics for aggregates of traffic over the network is
required beforehand, which is not always possible. Also static
provisioning is not always optimal.)”3
References
1. http://www.ipinfusion.com/pdf/IP_InfusionQoS_MPLS2.pdf
2. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/technologies/tk543/tk766/technologi
es_white_paper09186a00800a3e2f.html
3. http://www.mplstutorial.com/diffserv-over-mpls-introduction-and-
benefits
4. http://www.rhyshaden.com/qos.htm
5. http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2475.txt
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_services#Per-Hop_Behavior
7. http://www.cisco.biz/en/US/docs/ios/12_0st/12_0st21/feature/guid
e/fs_rtr.pdf
8. http://www.javvin.com/protocol/rfc2474.pdf
9. http://www.javvin.com/protocolDiffServ.html
10. http://www.scribd.com/doc/10064341/Cisco-Introduction-IP-QoS-Course
11. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb794738.aspx
12. http://www.lancope.com/resource/documents/QoSUsingDiffServ.p
df