Manual Chapter : Configuring Tiered Services with Bandwidth Control

Applies To:

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BIG-IP PEM

  • 11.5.10, 11.5.9, 11.5.8, 11.5.7, 11.5.6, 11.5.5, 11.5.4, 11.5.3, 11.5.2, 11.5.1
Manual Chapter

Overview: Configuring tiered services with bandwidth control

You can set up Policy Enforcement Manager to enforce different levels of bandwidth control on subscribers, providing more bandwidth to subscribers with higher tier subscriptions. Bandwidth control in this case is per subscriber and per application.

This implementation provides three tiers of service: gold (the highest level), silver (the next highest), and bronze (the lowest level). You create three dynamic bandwidth controllers, one for each tier to provide different bandwidth limits for subscribers with different plans. Each tier includes bandwidth control limits for three types of application traffic (P2P, audio-video, and web). You also create three enforcement policies, one for each tier. In the enforcement policies, rules applies bandwidth control to the different types of traffic.

Finally, subscribers are provisioned dynamically through a policy charging and rules function (PCRF) over a Gx interface. On the PCRF, you need to have associated subscribers with one of the subscriber tiers called gold, silver, and bronze.

Task Summary

Creating dynamic bandwidth control policies for tiered services

You can create dynamic bandwidth controllers for tiered services so that PEM can enforce different rates of bandwidth control for subscribers having different policy levels. Use this procedure and the values specified to create three bandwidth controllers, one for each tier of service.
  1. On the Main tab, click Acceleration > Bandwidth Controllers.
  2. Click Create.
  3. In the Name field, type the name of the bandwidth controller. In this example, name the three bandwidth controllers as follows:
    • Type gold-bwc for the premium subscription level.
    • Type silver-bwc for the medium subscription level.
    • Type bronze-bwc for the lowest subscription level.
    There is no requirement to use these names, but it is convenient to use a similar name for the bandwidth controller and the enforcement policy that you will attach it to. Later in this example, you will attach the gold-bwc bandwidth controller to the gold enforcement policy.
  4. In the Maximum Rate field, type a number and select the unit of measure to indicate the total throughput allowed for all the subscribers using each bandwidth controller. For this example, specify 10 Mbps for all three bandwidth controllers If you want to use different values, the number must be in the range from 1Mbps to 320Gbps.
  5. From the Dynamic list, select Enabled. The screen displays additional settings.
  6. In the Maximum Rate Per User field, type a number and select the unit of measure relative to the tier of service. For example, use the following values:
    • For gold-bwc, specify 8 Mbps.
    • For silver-bwc, specify 4 Mbps.
    • For bronze-bwc, specify 2 Mbps.
  7. Leave the IP Type of Service and Link Quality of Service values set to Pass Through, the default value.
  8. In the Categories field for each bandwidth controller, add three categories of traffic: P2P, Web, and Audio-video.
    • For gold-bwc, set P2P to 20%, set Web to 70%, and set Audio-video to 40%.
    • For silver-bwc, set P2P to 20%, set Web to 60%, and set Audio-video to 30%.
    • For bronze-bwc, set P2P to 20%, set Web to 50%, and set Audio-video to 20%.
    In the rule for the policy, different types of traffic, P2P, web, or audio-video traffic is limited to a smaller percentage of the total bandwidth for all subscribers who use that policy.
  9. Click Finished.
If this is the first bandwidth control policy created on a BIG-IP device, the system also creates a default static bandwidth control policy named default-bwc-policy in the Common partition to handle any traffic that is not included in the policy you created. If you delete all bandwidth controllers, this policy is also deleted.
For PEM to enforce bandwidth control, you need to create enforcement policies with rules that refer to the bandwidth controller.

Creating enforcement policies for three tiers

To impose bandwidth control on multiple subscriber tiers, you need to create an enforcement policy for each tier. Use this procedure and the values specified to create three enforcement policies.
  1. On the Main tab, click Policy Enforcement > Policies. The Policies screen opens.
  2. Click Create. The New Policy screen opens.
  3. In the Name field, type a name for the policy.
    • Type gold for the premium subscription level.
    • Type silver for the medium subscription level.
    • Type bronze for the lowest subscription level.
  4. Click Finished. The new enforcement policy is added to the policy list.
You have three enforcement policies that represent the three tiers of subscriber traffic that you are creating.
After creating the enforcement policies, you add rules that specify how to treat the subscriber traffic in each tier. In the implementation being developed, subscribers in the different tiers will get different maximum amounts of bandwidth. Further limits will be placed on specific types of traffic (P2P, audio-video, and web).

Creating the rules for tiered bandwidth control

You next add rules to each of the enforcement policies you created (gold, silver, and bronze). The rules limit the amount of bandwidth that P2P, web, and audio-video traffic can use. Create three rules for each enforcement policy.
  1. On the Main tab, click Policy Enforcement > Policies. The Policies screen opens.
  2. Click the name of the enforcement policy you want to add rules to. The properties screen for the policy opens.
  3. In the Policy Rules area, click Add. The New Rule screen opens.
  4. In the Name field, type a name for the rule. For the first rule, use the name P2P.
  5. In the Precedence field, type an integer that indicates the precedence, 1 being the highest. In this case, you can use any value, for example, 10, as the precedence for all the rules in all the policies because there is no conflict between the rules you are creating. Each rule applies to a different type of traffic: web, audio-video, and P2P.
  6. In the Classification setting, specify the type of traffic.
    1. For the first rule, from the Category list, select P2P. Use the default values for Match Criteria (Match) and Application (Any).
    2. Click Add.
  7. In the Rate Control setting, for Bandwidth Controller, select the name of the bandwidth controller and category. Choose
    1. For Bandwidth Controller, select the name that matches the policy you are working on. For example, if editing the gold policy, select gold-bwc.
    2. For Category, select the category that matches the type of traffic specified by the name of the rule. For example, select P2P.
  8. Click Finished.
  9. Repeat steps 3-8 to create a second rule for audio-video traffic with these settings.
    Option Values
    Name Audio-video
    Precedence 10 (any value is OK)
    Classification Category Audio_video
    Rate Control-Bandwidth Controller Same as the name of the policy you are adding the rule to (gold-bwc, silver-bwc, or bronze-bwc)
    Bandwidth Controller-Category Audio-video
  10. Repeat steps 3-8 to create a third rule for web traffic with these settings.
    Option Values
    Name Web
    Precedence 10 (any value is OK)
    Classification Category Web
    Rate Control-Bandwidth Controller Same as the name of the policy you are adding the rule to (gold-bwc, silver-bwc, or bronze-bwc)
    Bandwidth Controller-Category Web
The gold, silver, and bronze enforcement policies each have three rules called P2P, Web, and Audio-video. Each of the rules in the gold policy connects to the gold-bwc bandwidth controller; rules in the silver policy connect to the silver-bwc bandwidth controller and; rules in the bronze policy connect to the bronze-bwc policy.

Creating a listener for subscriber discovery with RADIUS and policy provisioning with PCRF

You create a listener to specify how to handle traffic for policy enforcement. Creating a listener does preliminary setup tasks on the BIG-IP system for application visibility, intelligent steering, bandwidth management, and reporting. You can also connect with a Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) over a Gx interface.
  1. On the Main tab, click Policy Enforcement > Listeners. The Listeners screen opens.
  2. Click Create. The New Listener screen opens.
  3. In the Name field, type a unique name for the listener.
  4. For the Destination setting, select Host or Network, and type the IP address or network and netmask to use.
    Tip: You can use a catch-all virtual server (0.0.0.0) to specify all traffic that is routed to the BIG-IP system.
    The system will create a virtual server using the address or network you specify.
  5. For the Service Port setting, type or select the service port for the virtual server.
  6. From the Protocol list, select the protocol of the traffic for which to deploy enforcement policies (TCP, UDP, or TCP and UDP). The system will create a virtual server for each protocol specified.
  7. To use network address translation, from the Source Address Translation list, select Auto Map. The system treats all of the self IP addresses as translation addresses.
  8. For the VLANs and Tunnels setting, move the VLANs and tunnels that you want to monitor from the Available list to the Selected list.
  9. For subscriber provisioning using RADIUS, ensure that Subscriber Identity Collection is set to RADIUS.
  10. For the VLANs and Tunnels setting, move the VLANs and tunnels that you want to monitor for RADIUS traffic from the Available list to the Selected list.
  11. For the tiered services example, do not assign global policies.
  12. To connect to a PCRF, from the Diameter Endpoint list, select Enabled and select Gx from the Supported Apps options.
  13. In the Origin Host field, type the fully qualified domain name of the PCRF or external policy server, for example, ocs.xnet.com.
  14. In the Origin Realm field, type the realm name or network in which the PCRF resides, for example, xnet.com.
  15. In the Destination Host field, type the destination host name of the PCRF or external policy server, for example, pcrfdest.net.com.
  16. In the Destination Realm field, type the realm name or network of the PCRF, for example, net.com.
  17. For the Pool Member Configuration setting, add the PCRF servers that are to be members of the Gx endpoint pool. Type the Member IP Address and Port number, then click Add.
  18. In the Message Retransmit Delay field, type the number of milliseconds to wait before retransmitting unanswered messages in case of failure from the BIG-IP system to the PCRF over the Gx interface. The default value is 1500.
  19. In the Message Max Retransmit field, type the maximum number of times that messages can be retransmitted from the BIG-IP system to the PCRF. The default value is 2.
  20. In the Fatal Grace Time field, type the time period in seconds that a diameter connection can remain disconnected before the system terminates all sessions associated with that diameter endpoint. The default value is 500.
  21. Click Finished. The Policy Enforcement Manager creates a listener, and displays the listener list.
When you create a listener, the Policy Enforcement Manager also creates virtual servers for each type of traffic (TCP, UDP, or both), and a virtual server for HTTP traffic. The system sets up classification and assigns the appropriate policy enforcement profile to the virtual servers. The system also creates a virtual server for the Gx interface with a diameter endpoint profile. If you are connecting to a RADIUS authentication server, a virtual server for RADIUS is also added.
Now you can send traffic through the network. As network traffic moves through the BIG-IP system, the system handles policy enforcement.

Implementation result

When traffic flows through a BIG-IP system, the system limits the aggregated bandwidth for all subscribers having a gold, silver, or bronze policy. Subscribers with a gold policy can use more of the total bandwidth than silver or bronze subscribers. Further, subscriber traffic in any of the tiers that is classified as audio-video, web, or P2P is limited to a percentage of the total bandwidth allowed for that tier.

For example, if a subscriber has a silver subscription level and PEM classifies their traffic as Web, the traffic is limited to 60% of the Maximum Rate specified in the silver-bwc bandwidth controller (4 Mbps). This leaves 2.4 Mbps as the maximum bandwidth for all web traffic of silver tier subscribers.