Policing Traffic: Markdown

On a policed interface, when traffic levels are at set are exceeded, a policer can take one of two actions: dropping the traffic, or marking it down with a lower priority.

Marking down the traffic involves changing the packets to a lower-priority class value. Excessed traffic marked with AF11 will be marked down to AF12 or AF13.

If the traffic is marked down, congestion avoidance mechanisms such as weighted random early detection will be more likely to drop that traffic over traffic that was not marked down.