Laboratory 10 - RSVP: Resource Reservation Protocol: Providing QoS by Reserving Resources in the Network

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) as a part of the integrated services approach in order to provide Quality of Service (QoS) to individual applications or flows. For many years, packet-switched networks have offered the promise of supporting multimedia applications, such as audio, video, and data. A network that can provide different levels of service is often said to support QoS. Two approaches developed to provide a range of QoS include integrated services and differentiated services. The RSVP follows the integrated services approach, whereby QoS is provided to individual applications or flows. The differentiated services approach provides QoS to large classes of data or aggregated traffic. One of the key assumptions underlying RSVP is that it should not detract from the robustness that is found in the Internet. RSVP uses the idea of “soft state” in the routers. “Soft state” in connection-oriented networks does not need to be explicitly deleted when it is no longer needed. Instead, it times out after some fairly short period if it is not periodically refreshed.