User guide

Key Concepts 159
Dropping The action of dropping allows the device to prevent blocked traffic from
flowing on the network. This is achieved by discarding (dropping) packets
that are identified via classification as traffic that should be blocked.
Service Levels The overall set of actions that are performed as a result of a particular
classification are commonly known as a service level. Service levels enable
a device configuration to be specified in terms of a mapping between the
classification rules and the service levels. This enables several classification
rules to share the same service level.
For example, a device may be configured with service levels for:
■ Business critical traffic
■ Voice traffic
■ The CEO’s traffic
■ Blocked traffic
■ All other traffic
Each of these service levels could perform different queuing and marking
of the packets assigned to them.The service level for blocked traffic
would not need to perform queuing or marking as traffic assigned to it
would be dropped. The device can then be configured with a set of
classification rules which are mapped to the service levels as shown in
Tab l e 14
.
Table 14 Service Levels
Classification Rules Service Level
Traffic to or from the database server Business Critical Service Level
Traffic to or from the email server Business Critical Service Level
Traffic to or from the company website Business Critical Service Level
Phone traffic Voice Service Level
Traffic to or from the CEO’s PC CEO’s Service Level
Game traffic Blocked Service Level
All other traffic All Other Traffic Service Level
3Com Network Administrator for HP OpenView.book Page 159 Wednesday, November 12, 2003 2:33 PM