A sender-initiated resource reservation mechanism over Diffserv networks

The integrated service (Intserv) architecture provides the Internet the ability of delivering end-to-end QoS to applications over heterogeneous networks. Existing approaches for providing Intserv require routers to manage per flow states and perform per flow operations. Such a network raises the scalability concerns when the network size or flow number is very big. The differentiated services (Diffserv) approach proposes a scalable means to deliver IP QoS based on handling of traffic aggregates. We introduce end-to-end QoS guaranteed services over Diffserv networks. This is implemented by introducing a resource reservation mechanism over Diffserv, that is a sender-initiated. In this way, we can simultaneously achieve scalability and much fine control on the services. We present a detailed experimental study of the end-to-end QoS behaviours. Our study demonstrates that it is very desirable to implement the reservation mechanism over Diffserv.