Quality of Service (QoS) in Internet Protocol (IF) Networks has been the subject of
active research over the past two decades. Integrated Services (IntServ) and
Differentiated Services (DiffServ) QoS architectures have emerged as proposed
standards for resource allocation in IF Networks. These two QoS architectures
support the need for multiple traffic queuing systems to allow for resource
partitioning for heterogeneous applications making use of the networks. There have
been a number of specifications or proposals for the number of traffic queuing
classes (Class of Service (CoS)) that will support integrated services in IF Networks,
but none has provided verification in the form of analytical or empirical investigation
to prove that its specification or proposal will be optimum.
Despite the existence of the two standard QoS architectures and the large volume of
research work that has been carried out on IF QoS, its deployment still remains
elusive in the Internet. This is not unconnected with the complexities associated with
some aspects of the standard QoS architectures. [Continues.