[nsp] Inbound QOS/COS?

[warner at CATS.UCSC.EDU]

>So for the life of me, I am stuck trying to find a way to essentially
>shape inbound traffic on our edge router.  The basic problem I am trying
>to solve is to guarantee a certain application a set amount of bandwidth
>(voip) inbound, outbound is not an issue.  I have looked at most of the
>options, and they all seem to be relative to outbound traffic.  Is there
>a way to have the border router (which is the choke point) prefer and
>accept traffic matching an access list and drop or delay other traffic
>during peak times?

As jlewis indicated, you're on the wrong side of the congested link
to make this easy.

Packeteer and Allot make in-line QoS boxes that classify TCP flows
at startup and then queue them (to create delay) or mess with the
TCP window -- with the effect being to slow them down.  If you can
put the breaks on incoming flows you may be able to relieve the
congestion at the far end of your bottleneck link.  These boxes are
a popular solution to stand in front of college residence networks.
Our experience is that they work (both vendors mentioned).  You do
need to be able to described the traffic that gets second-class
treatment.  The QoS appliances are good at helping you with that, too.

-jim warner, UC Santa Cruz