Mobile intelligent agent technology for QoS provisioning and network management

The DiffServ architecture provides a scalable mechanism for QoS introduction in a TCP/IP network. DiffServ model is based on the aggregation of traffic flows at an ingress (or egress) point of a network and the IP packet marking for different priority flows, according to several classification criteria. Two approaches exist in the DiffServ architecture: the Absolute and the Relative. In Absolute DiffServ, an admission control scheme is used to provide QoS guarantees as absolute bounds of specific QoS parameters. The Relative DiffServ model provides QoS guarantees per service class expressed with reference to guarantees given to other classes defined. Our study presents a QoS Provisioning & Network Management System. This system is based on an extension of the network management architecture followed and implemented within the scope of the European IST Project MANTRIP. MANTRIP network management system supports quality of service configuration and monitoring in IP networks. Our extension provides QoS Differentiation (Absolute and Relative) in IP DiffServ based Networks. The proposed system has been applied and performed well on a real network testbed.