RFC 3387 (rfc3387) - Page 2 of 19
Considerations from the Service Management Research Group (SMRG) on Quality of Service (QoS) in the IP Network
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 3387 IP Service Management in the QoS Network September 2002 non-existent. This is complicated by the fact that many of these new services will also demand some form of billing framework in addition to a control one, something radically new for IP. This document intends to evaluate the network and service management issues that will need to be addressed, if the IP networks of the future are going to offer more than just the traditional best effort service in any kind of significant way. 2. Background The task of defining a management framework for QoS will be difficult due to the fact that it represents a radical departure from the best effort service model that was at the core of IP in the past, and had a clear design strategy to have simplicity take precedence over everything else [1]. This philosophy was nowhere more apparent than in the network and service management area for IP [2]. Proposed changes to support a variety of QoS features will impact the existing control structure in a very dramatic way. Compounding the problem is the lack of understanding of what makes up a "service" in IP [3]. Unlike some other network technologies, in IP it does not suffice to limit the scope of service management simply to end-to-end connectivity, but the transport service offered to packets and the way the transport is used must also be covered. QoS management is a subset of the more general service management. In looking to solve the QoS management problem it can be useful to understand some of the issues and limitations of the service management problem. QoS can not be treated as a standalone entity and will have its management requirements driven by the general higher level service requirements. If the available transport services in IP expand, the result will be the further expansion of what is considered a service. The now de-facto inclusion of WEB services in the scope of IP service, which is remarkable given that the WEB did not even exist when IP was first invented, illustrates this situation well. This phenomenon can be expected to increase with the current trend towards moving network decision points towards the boundary of the network and, as a result, closer to the applications and customers. Additionally, the argument continues over the need for QoS in IP networks at all. New technologies based on fiber and wavelength-division multiplexing have many people convinced that bandwidth will be so inexpensive it is not going to be necessary to have an explicit control framework for providing QoS differentiation. However uneconomical it is to engineer a network for peak usage, a major argument in this debate certainly is the cost of developing operational support systems for a QoS network and deploying them in the existing networks. Just the fact that customers might be willing to pay for additional service may not be justification for implementing sweeping architectural changes that could seriously affect the Internet as it is known Eder, et. al. Informational
