The use of service level agreements in tactical military coalition force networks

Tactical military coalition force IP networks will have to offer quality of service. Service level agreements and service level specifications are important elements of the QoS architecture in civilian networks. However, SLAs/SLSs in military coalition networks should not be applied in the same fashion as in a commercial network. Our contribution is to identify the useful role SLAs/SLSs can play in network engineering and QoS management of tactical coalition force networks. The SLS definition needs to be more detailed than for a commercial SLS, and its monitoring must be performed on a finer timescale than in comparable commercial networks. The security architecture of military coalition networks may also restrict the monitoring and SLA management. Finally, we sketch a measurement-based approach showing how SLSs can be used in tactical military coalition force networks to support both call admission control and network engineering. Parts of this analysis include a discussion of SLSs and the proposed NATO standards for tactical communications network.