Quality of Service
Cisco UCS provides the following methods to implement quality of service:
• System classes that specify the global configuration for certain types of traffic across the entire system
• QoS policies that assign system classes for individual vNICs
• Flow control policies that determine how uplink Ethernet ports handle pause frames
System Classes
Cisco UCS uses Data Center Ethernet (DCE) to handle all traffic inside a Cisco UCS domain. This industry
standard enhancement to Ethernet divides the bandwidth of the Ethernet pipe into eight virtual lanes. Two
virtual lanes are reserved for internal system and management traffic. You can configure quality of service
for the other six virtual lanes. System classes determine how the DCE bandwidth in these six virtual lanes is
allocated across the entire Cisco UCS domain.
Each system class reserves a specific segment of the bandwidth for a specific type of traffic. This provides a
level of traffic management, even in an oversubscribed system. For example, you can configure the Fibre
Channel Priority system class to determine the percentage of DCE bandwidth allocated to FCoE traffic.
The following table describes the system classes that you can configure:
Table 5: System Classes
DescriptionSystem Class
A configurable set of system classes that you can include in the QoS policy
for a service profile. Each system class manages one lane of traffic.
All properties of these system classes are available for you to assign custom
settings and policies.
Platinum
Gold
Silver
Bronze
A system class that sets the quality of service for the lane reserved for Basic
Ethernet traffic.
Some properties of this system class are preset and cannot be modified. For
example, this class has a drop policy that allows it to drop data packets if
required. You cannot disable this system class.
Best Effort
A system class that sets the quality of service for the lane reserved for Fibre
Channel over Ethernet traffic.
Some properties of this system class are preset and cannot be modified. For
example, this class has a no-drop policy that ensures it never drops data packets.
You cannot disable this system class.
Fibre Channel
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Traffic Management