Using Bandwidth Management

Why Bandwidth Management (BWM)?

Nowadays, we have many different traffic types for Internet applications. Some traffic may consume high bandwidth, such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol), if you are downloading or uploading files with large size. Some other traffic may not require high bandwidth, but they requires stable supply of bandwidth, such as VoIP traffic. The VoIP quality would not be good, if all of the outgoing bandwidth is occupied via FTP. Additionally, chances are that you would like to grant higher bandwidth for some body special who is using specific IP address in your network. All of these are reasons why we need bandwidth management.

How Bandwidth Management in Prestige?

P662 achieves BWM by classifying packets, and control when to send out the classified packets. Bandwidth Management of ZyXEL appliances operates on the IP layer. The major step to configure BWM is defining filter rules by fields of IP header or TCP/UDP port number. Then specify the volume of bandwidth you want to allocate to the filtered traffic.

Using BWM

1. Go to ADVANCED->BW MGMT->Summary, activate bandwidth management on the interface you would like to manage. We enable the BWM function on WAN1 interface in this example.

2. Enter the total speed for this interface that you want to allocate using bandwidth management. This appears as the bandwidth budget of the interface’s root class.

3. Select how you want the bandwidth to be allocated. Priority-Based means bandwidth is allocated via priority, so the traffic with highest priority would be served first, then the second priority is served secondly and so on. If Fairness-Based is chosen, then the bandwidth is allocated by ratio. Which means if A class needs 300 kbps, B class needs 600 kbps, then the ratio of A and B's actual bandwidth is 1:2. So if we get 450 kbps in total, then A would get 150 kbps, B would get 300 kbps.

Key Settings:

Active | Check the box to enable BWM on the interface. Note that if you would like to manage traffic from WAN to LAN, you should apply BWM on LAN interface. If you would like to management traffic from WAN to DMZ, please apply BWM on DMZ interface.
Speed | Enter the total speed to manage on this interface. This value is the budget of the class tree's root.
Scheduler | Choose the principle to allocate bandwidth on this interface. Priority-Based allocates bandwidth via priority. Fairness-Based allocates bandwidth by ratio.
Maximize Bandwidth Usage | Check this box if you would like to give residuary bandwidth from Interface to the classes who need more bandwidth than configured amount. Do not select this if you want to reserve bandwidth for traffic that does not match a bandwidth class or you want to limit the bandwidth of each class at the configured value. (Please note that to meat the second condition, you should also disable bandwidth borrowing on the class.)

1. Go to ADVANCED->BW MGMT->Class Setup, select the interface on which you would like to setup the Class tree.

2. Click the radio button besides the Root Class, then press 'Add Sub-Class'

Key Settings:

Class Name | Give this class a name, for example, 'App'
Bandwidth Budget | Configure the speed you would like to allocate to this class
Priority | Enter a number between 0 and 7 to set the priority of this class. The higher the number, the higher the priority. The default setting is 3.
Bandwidth Borrowing | Check this box if you would like to let this class to borrow bandwidth from it's parents when the required bandwidth is higher than the configured amount. Do not check this if you want to limit the bandwidth of this class at the configured value.(Please note that you should also disable Maximize Bandwidth Usage on the interface to meat the condition.)
Enable Bandwidth Filter | Check this to specify the traffic types via IP addresses/Port numbers.
Destination IP Address | Enter the IP address of destination that meats this class.
Destination Subnet Mask | Enter the destination subnet mask.
Destination Port | Enter the destination port number of the traffic.
Source IP Address | Enter the IP address of source that meats this class. Note that for traffic from 'LAN to WAN', since BWM is before NAT, you should use the IP address before NAT processing.
Source Subnet Mask | Enter the destination subnet mask.
Source Port | Enter the source port number of the traffic.
Protocol ID | Enter the protocol number for the traffic. 1 for ICMP, 6 for TCP or 17 for UDP

After configuration BWM, you can check current bandwidth of the configured traffic in ADVANCED->BWM MGMT->Monitor. The values in the column of Current usage (kbps) would display the actually number.