RFC 1346 (rfc1346) - Page 3 of 6

Resource Allocation, Control, and Accounting for the Use of Network Resources

RFC 1346      Resource Allocation, Control, and Accounting     June 1992


   (d) It may be Network Manager A has a link that Network Manager B
   would like to use on occasion, perhaps as back-up on access to a
   third network.  Network Manager A might well wish to be
   accommodating, perhaps as examples because of financial benefit or
   perhaps because of the possibility of a reciprocal arrangement.
   However, the fear of overload affecting normal use and the lack of
   control over the usage militates against arrangements that the
   parties could be quite keen to make.

   Such challenges are very far from being unique to networking.
   Government and both public and private organisations and companies
   allocate budgets (and resources other than money), control and
   account for usage, recognising the possibility of overdrawing and
   borrowing.  In times of shortage, food is rationed.  I haven't
   checked this out, but it would surprise me if Jerry Hall wasn't
   guaranteed a ticket for any Rolling Stones concert, should she wish
   to attend.

   The charging factor influences use but does not control it (except
   perhaps in unusual circumstances where say payment was expected in
   advance and usage was cut off when the money ran out).

   In the IT world, multi-user hosts have filestore control systems; one
   that I use has an overdraft facility with no penalty for not having a
   prior arrangement!  There are also system designs and implementations
   for sharing host processor time with more sophistication than just
   counting seconds and chopping people off; this problem seems to me to
   be reasonably well understood.  (Library catalogue searches under
   author "John Larmouth" should provide some references for those who
   require convincing.)  Some multi-user hosts have controls of sorts on
   terminal connections.  On the other hand, I am not aware of any
   control system in operation that can guarantee multi-user host
   response time even outside the network context among directly
   connected terminals.

   The various roles bring different interests to bear.  A provider will
   not necessarily see it in his interests to control usage, or (perhaps
   even more likely) to provide customers with control tools, since the
   lack of these may encourage - or even oblige - the customer to buy
   more.  Even if the IT Service Manager can deal with the issue of who
   or what is important, and the issues of the relative importance of
   allocating resources against requests, other issues like social
   acceptability may arise to complicate his life.  For example it may
   be generally agreed (and perhaps the network manager instructed) that
   "everyone" must be able to do a small amount of work at any time,
   perhaps to do some housekeeping or seek information.





Jones