Quality-of-Service Issues

in Networking Environments

Burkhard Stiller ?

University of Cambridge, Computer Laboratory
New Museums Site, Pembroke Street
Cambridge, CB2 3QR, England, U.K.
Phone: +44 +1223 334476, FAX: +44 +1223 334678
E-Mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Quality-of-Service (QoS) issues in networking environments cover various separate areas and topics. They include at least the specification of applications requirements, the definition of network services, QoS models, resource reservation methods, negotiation and transformation methods for QoS, and operating system support for guaranteed services. An embracing approach for handling, dealing with, and supporting QoS in different scenarios and technical set-ups is required to manage sufficiently forthcoming communication and networking tasks. Modern telecommunication systems require an integrated architecture for applications, communication subsystems, and network perspectives to overcome drawbacks of traditional communication architectures, such as redundant protocol functionality, weakly designed interfaces between the end-system and a network adapter, or impossibility of specifying and guaranteeing QoS parameter.

This work contains the discussion of a number of interconnected QoS issues, e.g., QoS mapping, QoS negotiation, QoS-based configuration of communication protocols, or QoS aspects in Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) signaling protocols, which have been dealt with during a one-year research fellowship. This report is not intended to be a complete description of every technical detail, but tries to provide a brief overall picture of the emerging and explosively developing QoS issues in telecommunication systems. Additionally, investigations of some of these issues are undertaken in a more closer detail. It is mainly focussed on QoS mapping, negotiation, and updating in the communication protocol area.

? The author is currently on leave from Universit?at Karlsruhe, Institut f?ur Telematik, D-76128 Karlsruhe, Germany, and is sponsored by the Commission of the European Communities as a Research Fellow under the Human Capital and Mobility Scheme (RG 19327).