C HAPTER
9
QoS Support on the Catalyst
6500 MSFC and FlexWAN
Chapter 8, “QoS Support on the Catalyst 6500,” detailed the Catalyst 6500’s quality of
service (QoS) capabilities from a campus LAN perspective. Moreover, the chapter further
detailed the QoS capabilities by describing the architecture and behavior of the individual
port application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and the Policy Feature Card (PFC) on
the Catalyst 6500. As discussed in Chapter 8, when equipped with specific linecards and a
PFC, the Catalyst 6500 is highly versatile and offers many QoS mechanisms. These
features help maintain the end-to-end QoS policies enforced in the LAN environment,
ensuring the timely delivery of mission-critical applications.
This chapter focuses on the QoS mechanisms available on the Multilayer Switch Feature
Card (MSFC) and FlexWAN. The MSFC and FlexWAN extend the 6500’s QoS capabilities
to the metropolitan-area network (MAN) and wide-area network (WAN). The intended use
of the MSFC forwarding engine is strictly for switching packets that are not hardware
switched by the PFC. Examples of software-switched traffic processed by the MSFC
include packet flows requiring Network Address Translation (NAT), encryption, policy
routing, and broadcast forwarding in specific software versions. The FlexWAN module,
designated as part number WS-X6182, enables WAN capabilities on the Catalyst 6500.
Integrating the MSFC and FlexWAN module into a Catalyst 6500 enables the administrator
to consolidate QoS policies for WAN and LAN routers within one platform, simplifying the
configuration process. This integration also offers the possibility for end-to-end QoS
deployment, sustaining service levels for mission-critical applications across the entire
network without the use of external routers, multiple platforms, and multiple versions of
Cisco IOS.
The FlexWAN and MSFC employ IOS-based QoS concepts introduced in Chapter 2, “End-to-
End QoS: Quality of Service at Layer 3 and Layer 2.” This chapter discusses how the FlexWAN
and MSFC support QoS features, and includes information on the following topics:
• MSFC and FlexWAN Architectural Overview
• QoS Support on the MSFC and FlexWAN
• Classification
• Marking
• Policing and Shaping
• Congestion Management and Scheduling
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