Cisco Catalyst 4500 Series, Software Configuration Manual

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Catalyst 4500 Series Switch, Cisco IOS Software Configuration Guide - Cisco IOS XE 3.9.xE and IOS 15.2(5)Ex
Chapter 1 Product Overview
Management Features
Cisco IOS IP Service Level Agreements
Cisco IOS IP Service Level Agreements (SLAs) allows Cisco customers to analyze IP service levels for
IP applications and services by using active traffic monitoring—the generation of traffic in a continuous,
reliable, and predictable manner—for measuring network performance. With Cisco IOS IP SLA, service
provider customers can measure and provide service level agreements, and enterprise customers can
verify service levels, verify outsourced service level agreements, and understand network performance.
Cisco IOS IP SLAs can perform network assessments, verify quality of service (QoS), ease the
deployment of new services, and assist with network troubleshooting.
For platform-specific information on Cisco IOS IP SLA, see Chapter 78, “Configuring Cisco IOS IP
SLA Operations.”
For more detail on Cisco IOS IP SLAs, see the Cisco IOS IP SLAs Configuration Guide, Release 12.4T :
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios/ipsla/configuration/guide/12_4t/sla_12_4t_book.html
A Catalyst 4500 series switch also supports a Built-in Traffic Simulator using Cisco IOS IP SLAs video
operations to generate synthetic traffic for a variety of video applications, such as Telepresence, IPTV
and IP video surveillance camera. You can use the simulator tool:
• for network assessment before deploying applications that have stringent network performance
requirements.
•
along with the Cisco IOS Mediatrace for post-deployment troubleshooting for any network related
performance issues.
The traffic simulator includes a sophisticated scheduler that allows the user to run several tests
simultaneously or periodically and over extended time periods. (Supported only on switches running the
Enterprise Services feature set.)
For information on configuring this feature, see the Configuring Cisco IOS IP SLAs Video Operations
document at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/ios-xml/ios/ipsla/configuration/12-2se/sla_video.html
Cisco Media Services Proxy
The Media Services Proxy (MSP) feature identifies various media end points in the network
automatically and renders appropriate media services. It acts as a layer that connects appropriate devices
with their respective network services automatically.
MSP follows a network-centric model, where the access switches and routers learn information about
devices and flow by using mechanisms such as Cisco Discovery Protocol (formerly known as CDP) and
DHCP, or by snooping on key protocol packets such as the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323.
Modifications to the endpoints are not required to achieve the information learning. After the
information is gleaned, MSP provides appropriate services to the network devices.
Following are the benefits of MSP:
•Automatic identification of devices and flow in the network.
•Application of appropriate services to the endpoints.
•Configuration control for the administrator, thereby reducing the manual configuration and
management of services. For example, configuring the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) in the
network for video applications requiring guaranteed bandwidth.
Note The system cannot scale to greater than 512 SIP flows with MSP and Flow Metadata enabled.