QoS/Priority - Not working as expected

[ciph3r]

Hello!

Here's what I'm trying to achieve and the steps I've taken so far: 

I have a large One Drive roll out about to happen @ 500 branch offices and each user data upload set will be unique. These offices have a slew of upload pipe's from 3 to 50 Mb/s up. My thought was that I could set a shaping rule for One Drive to Priority to "Low" and that would let all other traffic (which I've read is marked "Normal") have more bandwidth available. 

This doesn't work as I believe it should. 

Details about my config - 

200/7 cable connection

MX64/MS-225-48/MR18 test lab

Down/Up speeds are set and accurate

The dashboard see's this traffic as "Sharepoint" not sure why.. outdated definitions?

Policy is set on MX device

I know its correct due to hard bandwidth limits working perfectly

The test I perform is

-start uploading a file in a browser window 

-start large file sync with one drive

Monitor Task Manager for each programs usage

Doesn't matter which one I start first often the One Drive upload will consume more bandwidth than the browser upload

Am I missing something here?

[MacuserJim]

Can you post a screenshot of your traffic shaping settings?

[ciph3r]

Editing my first post with SS

[MacuserJim]

I would say get a packet capture of the One Drive app uploading and adding the IP(s) that is it communicating with. I wonder if the app is not getting categorized the same way as the browser upload.

Also what is the menu path you went through to get "Sharepoint"? I am able to specifically select OneDrive.

[ciph3r]

I can select one drive also but that's now how the device see's the traffic. It's identified as Sharepoint for reasons beyond me. The rule I have works if I select specific bandwidth limits so I know that it's seeing the traffic correctly. 

[MacuserJim]

Ok. The way the "High, Normal, and Low" traffic shaping settings work is by giving a fraction of the flows to a specific application. 

• High: 4/7 flows

• Normal: 2/7 flows

• Low: 1/7 flows

I'm not sure how much traffic is on your network, so is it possible the proportion of OneDrive traffic was considerably higher than other traffic?

Also I wonder if the OneDrive app initiates multiple flows of traffic when syncing. So in theory it 4 simultaneous traffic flows vs a single traffic flow that the browser might do. So when traffic shaping rules see that traffic it ends up giving the OneDrive app four times as much network flow.

[NolanHerring]

@MacuserJim
I happened to just test this last night.
Set the MX to 7Mbps on WAN slider thing, and when I do speedtest this holds true. Maxes out at 7Mbps

Set one rule, for YouTube to be LOW, which I interpret as meaning it will only pull 1Mbps (1/7 of the 7Mbps). No other rules.

I know that these priorities only kick in during saturation, so I started download Ubuntu ISO which maxes out the pipe at 7Mbps. So then I start a YouTube video and the results every time is they split 50/50, each pulling 3.5Mbps.

I was under the impression that I would see the Ubunutu ISO pull 6Mbps, and the YouTube pull 1Mbps

Either I'm misunderstanding something about how it is supposed to work, or my config is wrong.

[ciph3r]

@NolanHerring 

We are in the same boat here just flipped on down/up. I was expecting the same result but see similar findings as you. I've opened a ticket with Meraki about possible solutions. 

[PhilipDAth]

>The dashboard see's this traffic as "Sharepoint" not sure why.. outdated definitions?

@ciph3r OneDrive for Business is stored in your Sharepoint site (as sub-sites, just hidden from your view).  So that is the reason for that one.

>I was under the impression that I would see the Ubunutu ISO pull 6Mbps, and the YouTube pull 1Mbps

@NolanHerring that QoS is for traffic leaving the site (or being uploaded).  So seeing the downloaded traffic being split like this would be expected.

@ciph3r a better test might be to run something like www.speedtest.net in your browser during the OneDrive for Business upload, and monitor the upload performance.  The upload performance should only be affected in a small way.

[ciph3r]

@PhilipDAth - You're right about the one drive for business. 

If you look at the traffic for my client (first post) the second entry down is a speed test site that allows you to pick file sizes to test with. I picked a larger file which gave me time to see results.

Here is a cap of the behavior in action. This is Chrome pushing a file upload while OD is syncing a new folder. 

[NolanHerring]

@PhilipDAth

Phil, so just to clarify. The Priority rules (HIGH/NORMAL/LOW) only apply to Upload (outgoing) traffic? If that is true then it makes sense, but I feel like an idiot if that is true because I don't remember reading that anywhere lol. That is like wearing a hat and going 'where did i leave my hat' lol.

I take it then if I want to actually control YouTube to 1Mbps like mentioned above, I would need to do an actual traffic shaping and set the throughput level manually.

[MacuserJim]

@NolanHerring

That's right, in the Meraki documentation for that it specifies uplink.

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/Using_Packet_Prioritization_on_a_Tr...

And yeah, you would need to specify that bandwidth limit for the download.

[NolanHerring]

Aaaaand its in the very first sentence. I glossed right over that lol. They should underline it and make that word bold rofl. Thanks again !

[NolanHerring]

Actually now I know why it didn't register. I thought they were using the word 'uplink' as in 'wan port'. Not upload traffic itself. Just like oh ya plug it into the uplink port. etc.

Oh well lesson learned thanks again !

[PhilipDAth]

Rather than specifying "Sharepoint" try specifying "Windows Office365" and see if that matches instead.

[Jeizzen]

Hey, bringing back this one

1- So If I get right :

it is said :

Specifying a traffic shaping rule as High, Normal, Low guarantees a certain fraction of the uplink to each priority level

And by uplink, Meraki means upload 

So uplink in this doc doesn't mean 'the link above' , which would mean the MX Internet Interface. And would include upload and download

Cause yeah I'm wondering : is Priority applied to download and upload ?

2-  And I understand that in Traffic shapping rules, Bandwidth limit could affect Priority.

Let say Priority High (4/7) would guarante 10 Mbps (calculated with Uplink configuration), and Bandwidth limit is set to 5 Mbps. So Priority would be stopped at 5Mbps ?

thanks,

[PhilipDAth]

>Cause yeah I'm wondering : is Priority applied to download and upload ?

Upload only.

You can't do download.  Only the person sending can re-order the packets.  Once you received them (aka download) it's too late - you've already received them - you can't reorder them to change the priority.

[Jeizzen]

Cause I was wondering

If the MX recognizes that packets in incoming (download) are destined for its VoIP vlan for example and that download bandwidth is now saturated, would it be able to do the same Priority behaviour (as upload) and start to guarantee a certain amount of download bandwidth

But so I guess not

thanks,

[Jeizzen]

1-

I've managed in the last days to make few tests

If we are talking about the same 'Priority' parameters :

then, by testing, I saw Upload and Download were shaped by this parameter

I had 3 devices, each one connected to one of those subnets

I set up the Uplink configuration to 7Mbps to simplify calculation,

keeping in mind that Priority High = 4/7 of Uplink config, Normal = 2/7 and Low =1/7

I downloaded big files with the 2 devices that were in Normal and Low Priority subnets, to saturate the link

At the same time, I was making speedtests with the device that was in High Priority subnet.

I got 4 Mbps download with the High Priority device, which fits calculations

I cranked up Uplink config to 14 Mbps, just to be sure

I got 8 Mbps download, which also fits calculations

And it also worked with Upload tests

2-

And for point #2, yes Bandwidth limit will override Priority bandwitdh

[Jeizzen]

Could @Meraki confirm the tests I made are accurate about Priority and Bandwidth and that it is how it is supposed to react ?

thanks