Shaper Tab
Configuration > Templates & Policies > Shaping > Shaper
The Shaper provides a simplified way to globally configure QoS (Quality of Service) on the appliances.
Outbound Shaping is always enabled.
Inbound Shaping is disabled by default and can be enabled by clicking the Edit icon for a specific interface.
Traffic shaping allocates bandwidth as a percentage of the system bandwidth. Shaper parameters are organized into ten traffic classes. Four traffic classes are preconfigured and named real-time, interactive, default, and best effort. After compressing (deduplicating) all the outbound tunnelized and pass-through–shaped traffic, the system either applies policy settings globally or upon each interface, shaping traffic as it exits the interface.
To manage Shaper settings for an appliance’s system-level WAN Shaper, access the Shaper template. For minimum and maximum bandwidth, you can configure traffic class values as a percentage of total available system bandwidth and as an absolute value. The appliance always provides the larger of the minimum values and limits bandwidth to the lower of the maximum values.
- Max overrides Min if you set Min Bandwidth to a value greater than Max Bandwidth.
Shaper Tab Settings
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Appliance | Name of the appliance. |
| Interface Shaper | Enables a separate shaper for a specific WAN interface. For WAN optimization, the interface shaper can be used, but it is not recommended. For SD-WAN, it should never be used because overlay traffic is not directed to an interface shaper; traffic is always shaped by the default WAN shaper. |
| Max WAN BW | This limits the maximum bandwidth that a traffic class can use for WAN traffic. |
| Recalc on IF State Changes | When an interface state changes to UP or DOWN, selecting this recalculates the total bandwidth based on the configured bandwidth of all UP interfaces. For example, when wan0 goes down, wan0 bandwidth is removed from the total bandwidth when recalculating. |
| Traffic ID | The number assigned to the traffic class. |
| Traffic Name | The name assigned to a traffic class, either prescriptively or by the user. |
| Priority | Determines the order in which to allocate each class’ minimum bandwidth - 1 is first, 10 is last. |
| Min BW % | Refers to the percentage of bandwidth guaranteed to each traffic class, allocated by priority. However, if the sum of the percentages is greater than 100%, lower-priority traffic classes might not receive their guaranteed bandwidth if it is all consumed by higher-priority traffic. Max overrides Min if you set Min Bandwidth to a value greater than Max Bandwidth. |
| Min BW Absolute (kbps) | This guarantees a specific level of service when total system bandwidth declines. This is useful for maintaining the quality of VoIP, for example. |
| Min BW Actual (kbps) | This specifies the actual minimum level of service when total system bandwidth declines. Max BW is equal to the largest of the following values: Licensed BW, system BW, or the sum of the BW of the configured interfaces. |
| Excess Weighting | If there is bandwidth left over after satisfying the minimum bandwidth percentages, the excess is distributed among the traffic classes in proportion to the weightings specified in the Excess Weighting column. Values range from 1 to 10,000. |
| Max BW % | This limits the maximum bandwidth that a traffic class can use to a percentage of total available system bandwidth. |
| Max BW Absolute (kbps) | This limits the maximum bandwidth that a traffic class can use to an absolute value (kbps). You can specify a maximum absolute value to cap the bandwidth for downloads and streaming. |
| Max BW Actual (kbps) | This specifies the actual maximum level of service when total system bandwidth declines. Max BW is equal to the smallest of the following values: Licensed BW, system BW, or the sum of the BW of the configured interfaces. |
| Max Wait Time (ms) | Any packets waiting longer than the specified Max Wait Time are dropped. |
| Rate Limit (kbps) | You can set per-flow rate limit that a traffic class uses by specifying a number in the Rate Limit column. For no limit, use 0 (zero). |
| Enable | Specifies the shaping enabled status. Shaping is always enabled for outbound traffic and by configuration for inbound traffic. |
| Per Interface | Indicates if shaping is for each interface or for the gateway as a unit. |