Fuzzy Conflict Analysis for QoS Policy Parameters in DiffServ Networks

Policy-based network management is a necessity for managing large-scale environments. It provides the means for separating high-level system requirements from the actual implementation. As the network size increases, the need for automated tools to perform management becomes more apparent. But configuring routers and network devices to achieve QoS goals is a challenging task. Using Differentiated Services to dynamically perform this configuration involves defining policies on different network nodes in multiple domains. Policy aggregation across domains requires a unified policy model that can overcome the challenge of conflict detection and resolution. In this work, we propose a unified model to represent and encode QoS policies. This model enables efficient and flexible conflict analysis. The representation utilizes a bottom-up approach, from the base policy parameters to the aggregation of policies across domains with respect to traffic classes. We also present a classification of these conflicts and a measure of conflicts to assess the severity of any misconfiguration. The model and the conflict measure are evaluated with large networks and different topologies.