Virtual networks in the Internet

Selective treatments are needed for different types of traffic and different user groups, even on the Internet. Virtual networks provide capabilities for custom routings, priorities, and processing that are not available in either integrated services or differentiated services. This paper relates virtual networks to public network concepts of traffic grooming, virtual private networks and virtual paths, and shows how these and broader capabilities may be realized on the Internet. It describes a networking strategy incorporating intelligent routers that can decouple application QoS needs from core network resource allocations. These routers can be programmed to provide virtual networks, which can satisfy a wide range of application requirements.