• SonicOSX 7 Profile Objects
• Endpoint Security
• Bandwidth
  • Understanding Bandwidth Profiles
  • Bandwidth Profiles
    • Configuring Bandwidth Object Settings
      • Elemental Bandwidth Object Settings
    • Configuring BWM on an Interface
    • Configuring BWM in a Security Rule Action
    • Editing Bandwidth Profiles
    • Deleting Bandwidth Profiles
• Block Page
  • Customizing Block Page Settings
  • Cloning Block Pages
  • Deleting Block Pages
• Log and Alerts
  • Adding Log and Alerts Profiles
    • About Event Profiles
  • Editing Log and Alert Profiles
  • Deleting Log and Alert Profiles
• Intrusion Prevention
  • Configuring Intrusion Prevention Profiles
  • Deleting Intrusion Prevention Profiles
• QoS Marking
  • Classification
  • Marking
  • Conditioning
    • Site to Site VPN over QoS Capable Networks
    • Site to Site VPN over Public Networks
  • 802.1p and DSCP QoS
    • Enabling 802.1p
    • DSCP Marking
      • DSCP Marking and Mixed VPN Traffic
      • Configure for 802.1p CoS 4 – Controlled Load
      • QoS Mapping
      • Managing QoS Marking
  • Configuring QoS Marking
• DHCP Option
  • Configuring DHCP Option Objects
    • RFC-Defined DHCPV4 Option Numbers
    • RFC-Defined DHCPV6 Option Numbers
  • Editing DHCP Option Objects
  • Deleting DHCP Option Objects
• AWS
  • AWS Objects
    • About Address Object Mapping with AWS
    • Viewing Instance Properties in SonicOSX
    • Creating a New Address Object Mapping
    • Enable Mapping
    • Configuring Synchronization
    • Configuring Regions to Monitor
    • Verifying AWS Address Objects and Groups
• SonicWall Support
  • About This Document

Classification

Classification is necessary as a first step so that traffic in need of management can be identified. SonicOSX uses Access Rules as the interface to classification of traffic. This provides fine controls using combinations of Address Object, Service Object, and Schedule Object elements, allowing for classification criteria as general as all HTTP traffic and as specific as SSH traffic from hostA to serverB on Wednesdays at 2:12am.

SonicWall network security appliances have the ability to recognize, map, modify, and generate the industry-standard external CoS designators, DSCP and 802.1p. For more information, see 802.1p and DSCP QoS.

After being identified, or classified, it can be managed. Management can be performed internally by SonicOS Bandwidth Management (BWM), which is perfectly effective as long as the network is a fully contained autonomous system. After external or intermediate elements are introduced, such as foreign network infrastructures with unknown configurations, or other hosts contending for bandwidth (for example, the Internet) the ability to offer guarantees and predictability are diminished. In other words, as long as the endpoints of the network and everything in between are within your management, BWM functions exactly as configured. After external entities are introduced, the precision and efficacy of BWM configurations can begin to degrade.

But all is not lost. After SonicOSX classifies the traffic, it can tag the traffic to communicate this classification to certain external systems that are capable of abiding by CoS tags; and as a result, they too can participate in providing QoS.

Many service providers do not support CoS tags such as 802.1p or DSCP. Also, most network equipment with standard configurations is not be able to recognize 802.1p tags, and could drop tagged traffic.
Although DSCP does not cause compatibility issues, many service providers simply strip or ignore the DSCP tags, disregarding the code points.
If you wish to use 802.1p or DSCP marking on your network or your service provider’s network, you must first establish that these methods are supported. Verify that your internal network equipment can support CoS priority marking, and that it is correctly configured to do so. Check with your service provider – some offer fee-based support for QoS using these CoS methods.