Normal or service queuing is the default mode of operation for SAP ingress queuing. Service queuing preserves ingress forwarding bandwidth by allowing a service queue defined in an ingress SAP QoS policy to be represented by a group of hardware queues. A hardware queue is created for each switch fabric destination to which the logical service queue must forward packets. For a VPLS SAP with two ingress unicast service queues, two hardware queues are used for each destination forwarding engine the VPLS SAP is forwarding to. If three switch fabric destinations are involved, six queues are allocated (two unicast service queues multiplied by three destination forwarding complexes equals six hardware queues). Figure: Unicast service queue mapping to multiple destination based hardware queues demonstrates unicast hardware queue expansion. Service multipoint queues in the ingress SAP QoS policy are not expanded to multiple hardware queues, each service multipoint queue defined on the SAP equates to a single hardware queue to the switch fabric.
When multiple hardware queues represent a single logical service queue, the system automatically monitors the offered load and forwarding rate of each hardware queue. Based on the monitored state of each hardware queue, the system imposes an individual CIR and PIR rate for each queue that provides an overall aggregate CIR and PIR reflective of what is provisioned on the service queue.