Distributed Admission Control for QoS and SLS Management

Solange Lima, Paulo Carvalho and Vasco Freitas

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

Tel.: +351 253 604430
Fax.: +351 253 604471
E-mail: {solange,pmc,vf} (at) di.uminho.pt


Abstract

This article proposes a distributed admission control (AC) model based on on-line monitoring to manage the quality of Internet multimedia services and Service Level Specifications (SLSs).

The AC strategy covers intra and inter-domain operation, controls quality-of-service (QoS) without adding significant complexity to the network control plane and involves only edge nodes. The model underlying idea is to take advantage of the need and feedback of systematic on-line QoS monitoring in class-of-service (CoS) networks. While ingress nodes perform implicit or explicit AC resorting to service-oriented rules for SLS and QoS parameters control, egress nodes collect service metrics providing them as inputs for AC. The end-to-end approach is viewed as a cumulative and repetitive process of AC and available service computation. The AC criterion is evaluated as regards its capacity to ensure service commitments while achieving high network utilization.

The results show that the proposed model provides a good compromise between simplicity, service guarantee levels and network usage, even for services with strict QoS requirements. In addition, the QoS monitoring process is evaluated concerning its ability to capture the real behavior of each class. Crucial aspects of the model interrelated areas and implementation key points are also discussed.


Journal of Network and Systems Management, 123:397-426, Springer Netherlands, Sep 2004