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MPLS and Default CoS Classification

Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) class of service (CoS) works in conjunction with the routing device’s general CoS functionality.

When IP traffic enters a label-switched path (LSP) tunnel, the ingress routing device marks all packets with a class-of-service (CoS) value, which is used to place the traffic into a transmission queue. On the routing device, each physical interface has up to eight transmission queues. The CoS value is encoded as part of the MPLS header and remains in the packets until the MPLS header is removed when the packets exit from the egress routing device. The routing devices within the LSP utilize the CoS value set at the ingress routing device. The CoS value is encoded by means of the CoS bits (also known as the EXP or experimental bits).

If you do not configure any CoS features, the default general CoS settings are used. For MPLS class of service, you might want to prioritize how the transmission queues are serviced by configuring weighted round-robin, and to configure congestion avoidance using random early detection (RED).

The next-hop label-switching router (LSR) uses the default classification shown in Table 1.

Table 1: LSR Default Classification

Code Point

Forwarding Class

Loss Priority

000

best-effort

low

001

best-effort

high

010

expedited-forwarding

low

011

expedited-forwarding

high

100

assured-forwarding

low

101

assured-forwarding

high

110

network-control

low

111

network-control

high

Published: 2013-08-28