Before looking into packet level QoS detail when WMM disabled/ or Non WMM client traffic goes in WMM enabled wireless network we will see how QoS configurations will be done on WLC.

There are 4 QoS profiles(Platinum, Gold, Silver & Bronze) available in Cisco WLC platforms. If you go to “Wireless -> QoS -> Profiles” you can see these profiles.

If you click on each profile category, you can configure the parameters specific to that profile(Disable the radio network 802.11 a/n or b/g/n prior to do this & enable it once you are done). In below I have shown Platinum QoS profile configs. In this case per user bandwidth values leave as default ( which is Cisco’s best practice). Average Data rate & Average Burst rate is to control TCP traffic per user.  Average Real-time rate & Burst Real-time rate is to control UDP traffic per user. A value of 0 imposes no bandwidth restriction on the profile.Max value can be set up as 60,000 kbps.

Under wired QoS protocol select “802.1p” & set a priority value for that profile. This will be the maximum priority associated with packets that fall within the profile. This values should corresponds to IEEE802.11e/WMM standard & WLC will map into correct values as per Cisco standard prior to send to wired media.

Final step is to assign a QoS profile to WLAN configured. To do this go to “WLAN ->Select the WLAN to modify ->QoS”. Select the QoS profile you want to apply for the given WLAN. Under the WMM policy there are 3 different options (Allowed, Required, Disabled) available.

If you select WMM Policy “Required” option, only WMM capable client able to connect to the wireless network. If you select “Allowed” option both WMM capable & WMM not capable devices are able to connect to the wireless network. If you select “disabled” option WLC will not use WMM to prioratize traffic and all traffic will be treated as equal. Depend on the QoS profile you selected all packets will go to wired media with same 802.1p value. These option will change advertising CWmin/ CWmax/ AIFS /Tx-OP value of a wireless beacon frame. (Refer Wireless QoS, Part 2-a and Wireless QoS, Part 2-b from Jerome Henry for more detail)

If you want to configure these on CLI below is the command to be used. Please refer WLC config guide(In release 7.0.116.0 which is in CCIEv2.0 lab, pages 4-65 to 4-72)

# to disable the 802.11 radio netowrk
config 802.11a disable network
config 802.11b disable network
!
# to change the description of QoS profile
config qos description <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> “BULK-DATA-QoS-Profile”
!
# to configure TCP per user data rates
config qos average-data-rate <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> <0-60000>
config qos burst-data-rate <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> <0-60000>
!
# to configure UDP per user data rates
config qos average-realtime-rate <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> <0-60000>
config qos burst-realtime-rate <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> <0-60000>
!
# to define maximum priority tag falls within given QoS profile
config qos protocol-type <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> dot1p
config qos dot1p-tag <bronze|silver|gold|platinum> <0-7>

# to enable the 802.11 radio netowrk
config 802.11a enable network
config 802.11b enable network

Related Posts

1. Understanding Wireless QoS – Part 1
2. Understanding Wireless QoS – Part 2
3. Understanding Wireless QoS – Part 3
4. Understanding Wireless QoS – Part 5
5. 3750/3560/2960 Wired QoS
6. Who do you trust ? (DSCP or CoS)