Testing IP Differentiated Services Implementations

Carlos Parada, Jorge Carapinha, Francisco Fontes, Solange Lima and Paulo Carvalho

Universidade do Minho
Departamento de Informática
P-4710-057 Braga, Portugal

Tel.: +351 253 604470
Fax.: +351 253 604471
E-mail: {solange,paulo} (at) uminho.pt

PT INovação, S.A.
Portugal Telecom Group
P-3810-106 Aveiro, Portugal

E-mail: {carlos-f-parada,jorgec,fontes} (at) ptinovacao.pt


Abstract

Diffserv architecture is pointed out as a promising solution for the provision of QoS in the Internet in a scalable manner. The main objective of this work is to test, evaluate and discuss, from a practical point of view, two platforms for implementing Diffserv services: one developed at ICA/EPFL for the Linux OS and the other based on Cisco Systems routers. After comparing the configuration strategy in each platform, QoS related functionalities (e.g. classification, marking, policing, shaping) are tested and assessed. In particular, the implementation of EF and AF PHBs is analysed. The capacity of providing bandwidth guarantees and performing adequate traffic conditioning is evaluated as well as the impact background traffic has on delaying high priority traffic. Moreover, the computational effort Diffserv puts on routers is also measured in terms of CPU utilisation.


The IFIP 14th International Conference on Testing Communicating Systems (TestCom 2002), Kluwer Academic Pub, pp 55-71, ISBN 0-7923-7691-1, Berlin, Mar 19-22, 2002