Evaluation of a tunnel set-up mechanism in QoS-aware Ethernet access networks

This paper describes the design of a novel tunnel set-up mechanism for Ethernet access networks. The establishment of VLAN-based tunnels is realised with a "scoped refresh" extension of the GVRP standard. For the distribution of QoS-related reservation parameters, a new GARP-based protocol (G2RP) is developed with a closed loop design for updating the reservation parameters and hop-by-hop admission control. Both protocols are implemented on a Linux test bed using the click modular router. Extensive performance evaluations were performed. The results are compared with Linux implementations of the other tunnel set-up mechanisms.