| Abstract: | The complexity and sophistication of integratedbroadband networks call for a broad repertoire ofmanagement methods. Foreseen intensive competition ofthe communications market, and the upgrade ofend-customer's satisfaction as the focal point of anymanagement policy, raise a very important problem: howto utilize efficiently the resources of the networkwhile maintaining the Quality of Service (QoS) provided to end-users within a pre-negotiated range. Inthis paper, a QoS management architecture for multimediaapplications based on an application control scheme isproposed. Adhering to the Total Quality Management (TQM) paradigm, we let management span over theentire communication stack, the entire network(end-to-end) and the entire call duration. Applicationcontrol scheme aims to meet pre-specified QoS goals by adjusting the traffic produced by theend-user applications. The adjustment technique is basedon the notion that each multimedia session is allowed tooperate on a set of discrete application quality levels. A method for monitoring and assessingthe end-user perceived quality is presented. Themathematical problem of optimal resources allocation andan associated heuristic are specified. Finally, a specific instantiation of the introduced QoSmanagement architecture on a real testbed is describedand experimentation results are presented andevaluated. |
