Medianet Reference Guide - Cisco

Summary
Chapter 6
Medianet Management and Visibility Design Considerations
Summary
This design chapter has focused on functionality that can be used to provide increased visibility and
management of video flows within an enterprise medianet. From a high-level perspective, the
functionality can be separated into two broad categories: application-specific management functionality
and network-embedded management functionality. Application-specific management refers to
functionality within the components of a particular video solution: Cisco TelePresence, Cisco IP Video
Surveillance, Cisco Digital Media Systems, and Cisco Desktop Video Collaboration.
Network-embedded management refers to functionality embedded within the medianet infrastructure
itself, which allows both visibility and management of video flows. These include specific embedded
software features such as NetFlow and IPSLA, the Cisco router and Cisco Catalyst switch CLI itself, and
also hardware modules such as the Cisco NAM embedded within Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series Switches.
By implementing a QoS model that separates the various video applications into different service
classes, which are then mapped to separate queues and drop thresholds within Cisco router and switch
platforms, you can gain additional visibility into the video applications themselves by collecting flow
information based on DSCP aggregation, as well as monitoring the router and switch queues. Typically,
the more granular the QoS model (that is, up to 12 service classes) and the more queues and drop
thresholds deployed throughout medianet infrastructure devices, the greater the visibility and ability to
manage the flows.
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Medianet Reference Guide
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