Use of multilevel traffic contracts for admission optimization of multimedia connections in enterprise networks

Abstract

New networking protocols and encoding techniques are making possible the use of distributed multimedia applications in enterprise networks. However, these flows remain very sensitive and have to be handled by more efficient mechanisms in the network. ATM provides adequate service categories to this end but, to provide these applications with a convenient level of QOS, a large amount of resources have to be allocated. The drawback of this method is the limitation of the number of connections accepted by the network. In addition, variations in the charge of the network can not be taken into account once a connection has been established. To deal with this problem multilevel modeling of QOS and traffic contract is proposed. At the first stage such a model enhances the probability of the call acceptance. At the second stage, dynamic mechanisms to adjust (manage) connections, rather than renegotiating them, could be built into these models, to take into account the global charge in the network. Such a mechanism is proposed to optimize the interconnection capacity in enterprise networks. The world of enterprise teleworking is changing. Applications, such as collaborative and distance working, need to be offered different quality of service (QOS) for the duration of the session. The result of this evolution is a higher level of requirements in the transmission and processing capacities. Furthermore, more efficient mechanisms are needed to achieve a higher degree of performance, to reduce the cost of these new services. Reservation is one solution to offering a convenient level of QOS to multimedia applications.