User guide

Traffic Management
160 Firebox X Edge e-Series
Traffic Categories
The Firebox X Edge e-Series allows you to limit data sent through policies and Traffic Control filters. A policy
can allow or deny all data of a specified type. Traffic Control does not allow or deny data, but creates filters that
separate important network traffic from other data. For example, you can create a filter that identifies email
(SMTP) traffic or secure shell (SSH) connections.
When you create a filter, you must select the priority for the traffic it identifies. There are four categories of
network traffic: interactive, high, medium, and low. You can create as many as 100 traffic filters in each traffic
category. Filters can be based on the IP protocol type, the source or destination IP address, and the source or
destination port.
Interactive traffic is routed before all other traffic. Bandwidth not used for interactive traffic is divided between
high, medium, and low priority traffic. Unused bandwidth is automatically given to other categories. For
example, if there is no interactive or low priority traffic, all of the bandwidth is divided between high and
medium priority traffic.
Interactive traffic
Interactive traffic is sent before any other traffic and is limited only by the speed of your connection. Use the
interactive category for traffic that must have low latency. Some examples of interactive traffic are Telnet,
Secure Shell (SSH), video communication, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP).
High priority
High priority traffic is given 75% of the bandwidth not used by interactive traffic. Use the high priority category
for traffic that is very important to your company or uses a lot of bandwidth. Some examples of high priority
traffic are secure HTTP (HTTPS) and virtual private network (VPN) traffic.
Medium priority
Medium priority traffic is given 20% of the bandwidth not used by interactive traffic. When traffic control is
enabled, any traffic that is not in a different filter is automatically put in the medium category. This traffic is
represented by the All other traffic entry on the Traffic Control page.
Low priority
Low priority traffic is given 5% of the bandwidth not used by interactive traffic. Use the low priority category
for low priority traffic that does not use much bandwidth, or is not important. Some examples of low priority
traffic are peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfers or instant messaging (IM).
To use prioritization, you must know your upstream bandwidth limit in kilobits per second (Kbps). If
you do not know your upstream bandwidth limit, ask your network administrator or ISP. For better
traffic control, the Edge subtracts 5% from the upstream bandwidth rate limit to decrease packet
latency. If you enter an incorrect upstream bandwidth limit, traffic control does not operate
correctly.