Q-SYS Q-LAN Switch Configuration

This will provide a general overview of required multicast configuration for a VLAN with Q-SYS network based audio devices

 
 

Swtich prequisites

  • Network switch provides Gigabit ports for all Q-LAN devices

  • Network switch supports a non-blocking architecture

  • Jumbo frames disabled

  • Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) is disabled for ports with Q-LAN devices

  • EEE/Green Ethernet is disabled for ports with Q-LAN devices

  • DSCP-based QoS support

  • Egress Queues - at least four egress queues per port

  • Egress Buffering on each port of at least 40 KB of memory

  • Strict Priority Queuing support. Other types of priority queuing are not supported

Multicast configuration

Q-LAN uses Multicast and IGMP Snooping for discovery and audio/video transmission

See KBase article AVoIP Multicast Switch Configuration for basic Multicast configuration, then add these additional steps

  • Add these Multicast addresses to the Forwarding Database for Q-SYS discovery protocol (QDP)

    • 224.0.23.175

    • 239.255.255.250

    • 224.0.23.175

IGMP Configuration

See KBase article AVoIP Multicast Switch Configuration for IGMP Configuration

QoS configuration

Set up the following DSCP values on the switch. Set all other DSCP values to the lowest possible priority or “Best Effort”

DSCP56 (CS7) - HIGHEST

  • Dante clock traffic

  • AES67 clock traffic from a Dante device running Dante firmware 3.x

DSCP46 (EF, or Expedited Forwarding) - SECOND HIGHEST

  • Dante audio traffic (unicast and multicast)

  • AES67 audio traffic from a Dante device running Dante firmware 3.x

  • AES67 clock traffic from a Dante device running Dante firmware 4.x*

  • AES67 clock traffic from most AES67 standard-compliant devices

DSCP34 (AF41) - THIRD HIGHEST

  • AES67 audio traffic from a Dante device running Dante firmware 4.x*

  • AES67 audio traffic from most AES67 standard-compliant devices

 

For more information see this Kbase article from QSC