Wireless/Redundant Edge Services xl Module Management and Configuration Guide WS.01.03 or greater

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Introduction
ProCurve Wireless Edge Services xl Module
Traffic Management
In the past, users often treated wireless connections as a supplement to other
network connections. Now, more and more users demand more and more
from wireless connections, increasing congestion and decreasing QoS.
Compounding the problem, users have begun to demand the same applica-
tions to which they have become accustomed on Ethernet connections. As
multimedia applications become more common in wireless networks, main-
taining a high QoS for such time-sensitive, bandwidth-intensive traffic
becomes a priority. Voice-over-WLAN (VoWLAN) wireless phones further
complicate the situation with yet another type of traffic that requires special
handling.
A wireless network, which uses the shared medium of radio signals, functions
differently from a switched Ethernet network. Collisions can occur, band-
width can be reduced, and latency can be high. A wireless QoS solution must
address these issues.
The Wireless Edge Services xl Module manages wireless traffic with several
QoS mechanisms, ensuring that each type of traffic receives the necessary
level of service.
The ProCurve Wireless Edge Services xl Module supports the following QoS
protocols, which you can enable on a WLAN-to-WLAN basis:
■ SpectraLink Voice Priority (SVP)
■ WMM
These protocols improve QoS in the wireless network. You can also configure
the module to mark traffic outbound to voice stations for high priority. Called
Voice prioritization, this feature improves the QoS for traffic destined to
wireless stations in both the Ethernet network and the wireless network.
Finally, the Wireless Edge Services xl Module can implement weighted fair
queueing (WFQ) on traffic destined from the module to RPs.
Figure 1-8 illustrates which traffic is affected by each QoS mechanism.