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Vyatta documentation

Learn how to install, configure, and operate the Vyatta Network Operating System (Vyatta NOS) and Orchestrator, which help drive our virtual networking and physical platforms portfolio.

QoS overview

About quality of service (QoS) and what it means in the context of Vyatta NOS.

Typically, networks operate on a best-effort delivery basis. This means that all traffic has equal priority and an equal chance of delivery. When congestion occurs, all traffic has an equal chance that it will be dropped.

With QoS, you can select specific network traffic, prioritize it by its relative importance, and provide preferential treatment through the use of congestion-management and congestion-avoidance techniques.

QoS helps you to protect your network and to smooth the flow of traffic through it.

  • You can use QoS to protect down-stream devices from overload of data and traffic.
  • You can use QoS to protect important traffic, such as network-control, voice, video, and priority traffic.
  • You can use traffic shaping with QoS to provide smooth, prioritized traffic flows that result in more efficient use of resources.

To better understand QoS features, and how we implement them, you need to know about the flow of traffic through a router.