Quality Of Service Signaling Research Articles

A Critical Review of Quality of Service Models in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Quality of service (QoS) provisioning in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) consists of providing a complex functionality in a harsh environment where resources are scarce. Thus, it is very challenging to build an efficient solution to address this issue. The proposed solutions in the literature are broadly classified into four categories, namely: QoS routing protocols, QoS signalling, QoS-aware MAC protocols and QoS models, which are the main concern of our study. The contribution of this paper is threefold: Firstly, we propose a set of guidelines to deal with the challenges facing QoS models design in ad hoc networks. Secondly, we propose a new taxonomy for QoS models in ad hoc networks. Finally, we provide an in-depth survey and discussion of the most relevant proposed frameworks.

Including 10-Gigabit-capable Passive Optical Network under End-to-End Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching Provisioned Quality of Service

End-to-end quality of service provisioning is still a challenging task despite many years of research and development in this area. Considering a generalized multi-protocol label switching based core/metro network and resource reservation protocol capable home gateways, it is the access part of the network where quality of service signaling is bridged. This article proposes strategies for generalized multi-protocol label switching control over next emerging passive optical network standard, i.e., the 10-gigabit-capable passive optical network. Node management and resource allocation approaches are discussed, and possible issues are raised. The analysis shows that consideration of a 10-gigabit-capable passive optical network as a generalized multi-protocol label switching controlled domain is valid and may advance end-to-end quality of service provisioning for passive optical network based customers.

Handling Mobility Management and QoS Aspects in All-IP Networks

It is well-known that all-IP networks will be more dynamic and should be more flexible than current networks. Deploying these networks requires, however, overcoming many challenges. One of the main challenges is how to provide Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees in such highly dynamic mobile environments. Addressing this challenge is the main focus of this paper, which provides an insight into how mobility management and QoS solutions can be coupled with each other. Moreover, the paper describes in detail the QoS-aware Mobile IP Fast Authentication Protocol (QoMIFA), which is capable of handling mobility management and simultaneously reserving resources, thus, satisfying the requirements of all-IP mobile communication networks. The paper evaluates also the performance of QoMIFA compared to the well-known Simple QoS signaling protocol (Simple QoS) by means of simulation studies modeled in the network simulator 2 (ns2). The evaluation comprises the investigation of the impact of the network load on both protocols. Our simulation results show that QoMIFA is capable of achieving fast and smooth handoffs in addition to its capability of reserving resources very quickly. With respect to the time required to reserve resources for uplink traffic, QoMIFA is up to 80% faster than Simple QoS. If the resources are reserved for downlink traffic, QoMIFA performs up to 93% better. Considering the number of dropped packets per handoff, QoMIFA reduces the packets lost per handoff by 22% up to 76% on uplink and by 55% up to 93% on downlink as compared to Simple QoS. A main advantage of QoMIFA is that it minimizes the packets sent as best-effort (without QoS guarantees) after handoffs. QoMIFA reduces the best-effort packets transmitted on downlink by approximately 94% compared to Simple QoS and eliminates these packets on uplink.

A survey of MAC based QoS implementations for WiMAX networks

We present a comprehensive survey of proposed Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms in the Media Access Control (MAC) sublayer of WiMAX based wireless networks. QoS support in WiMAX is a fundamental design requirement, and is considerably more difficult than in wired networks, mainly because of the variable and unpredictable characteristics of wireless links. We discuss various QoS architectures, signaling mechanisms and admission control techniques proposed in the WiMAX research literature, summarizing the operation of each, and providing comparative evaluations that include advantages and limitations.

Supporting Real-Time VBR Video Transport on WiMedia-Based Wireless Personal Area Networks

Ultrawideband (UWB) is an emerging technology that is expected to achieve high data rate with low-power transmission and to enable quality-of-service (QoS)-based multimedia services over wireless personal area networks (WPANs). Currently, WiMedia alliance proposes the physical layer and medium access control (MAC) layer standards for WPANs. Although WiMedia MAC defines the QoS signaling mechanism, it does not specify the resource-allocation algorithm that will eventually provide the QoS guarantee. To address this issue, we first propose a novel traffic predictor for real-time variable bit rate (VBR) videos. Based on the proposed predictor, we then present a dynamic resource-allocation (DRA) algorithm to support real-time VBR video transmission over WiMedia-based WPANs. Simulation results indicate that the proposed traffic predictor and DRA algorithm significantly outperform other existing schemes.

A Mobility-Aware QoS Signaling Protocol for Ambient Networks

Mobility-aware quality of service (QoS) signaling is crucial to provide seamless multimedia services in the ambient environment where mobile nodes may move frequently between different wireless access networks. The mobility of an IP-based node in ambient networks affects routing paths, and as a result, can have a significant impact on the operation and state management of QoS signaling protocols. In this paper, we first analyze the impact of mobility on QoS signaling protocols and how the protocols operate in mobility scenarios. We then propose an efficient mobility-aware QoS signaling protocol which can operate adaptively in ambient networks. The key features of the protocol include the fast discovery of a crossover node where the old and new paths converge or diverge due to handover and the localized state management for seamless services. Our analytical and simulation/experimental results show that the proposed/implemented protocol works better than existing protocols in the IP-based mobile environment.

Scheduler for IEEE 802.16 networks

The IEEE 802.16 standard was designed to support real-time and bandwidth demanding applications with quality of service (QoS). Although the standard defines a QoS signaling framework and five service levels, scheduling disciplines for these service levels are unspecified. In this paper, we propose a scheduling scheme for the uplink traffic which is fully standard-compliant and can be easily implemented in the base station. Simulation results show that this scheme is able to meet the QoS requirements of the service flows.

IP MULTIMEDIA SUBSYSTEM - Application-Level QoS Negotiation and Signaling for Advanced Multimedia Services in the IMS

The IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) has been recognized as a reference next-generation network architecture for offering multimedia services over an Internet Protocol (IP)-based infrastructure. One of the key benefits of the IMS is efficient and flexible introduction of new services and access to third-party application providers, thanks to standard interfaces and standardized service capabilities. To support novel media-rich applications across a wide range of user devices and access networks, IMS must support negotiable quality of service (QoS) for IP multimedia sessions. In this article, we describe the application-level QoS signaling as specified by the 3GPP and propose some enhancements based on advanced QoS parameter matching and optimization functionality to be included along the signaling path. We outline various signaling flow scenarios and discuss them in the context of a case study involving an IMS-supported 3D virtual environment, featuring a treasure-hunt-like game.

A quality-of-service signaling architecture for seamless handover support in next generation, IP-based mobile networks

The coupling of signaling protocols for mobility management and resource reservation plays an important role to achieve Quality-of-Service (QoS) in wireless environments. When performing a handover, request and allocation of resources have to be done in the shortest possible time to avoid disruptions for the user service. Therefore, it is preferable to ensure resource availability in advance, which we call anticipated handover. This approach for providing seamless handovers in turn poses challenges for the overall design of the QoS architecture and its associated QoS signaling protocol. This article describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of a comprehensive QoS architecture and a suitable QoS signaling protocol. It discusses intrinsic problems of reservations in IP based networks such as session ownership as well as a number of protocol design issues regarding the integration of QoS signaling with other protocols, such as Mobile IP. In particular, we define an end-to-end QoS architecture and a mobility-aware reservation signaling protocol Mobility Aware Reservation Signaling Protocol (MARSP) that supports anticipated handover, thus enabling seamless services over heterogeneous wireless access networks. The presented architecture and protocol were implemented and evaluated by measurements. They show that anticipated handovers not only outperform hard handovers regarding handover latency, but that they also provide functional and robustness advantages.

Collected experience from implementing RSVP

Internet quality of service (QoS) is still a highly debated topic for more than fifteen years. Even with the large variety of QoS proposals and the impressive research advances, there is little deployment yet of network layer QoS technology. One specific problem domain is QoS signalling, which has recently attracted increasing attention to bring forward new standardization approaches. In this paper, an extensive study of RSVP is presented, covering protocol design, software design, and performance aspects of the basic version of RSVP and of certain standardized and experimental extensions. This work is based on and presents the experience from implementing RSVP for UNIX systems and the ns-2 simulation environment. The implementation includes a variety of protocol extensions and incorporates several internal improvements. It has been subject to extensive functional and performance evaluations, the results of which are reported here

Design and Analysis of a Denial-of-Service-Resistant Quality-of-Service Signaling Protocol for MANETs

Quality-of-service (QoS) signaling protocols for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are highly vulnerable to attacks. In particular, a class of denial-of-service (DoS) attacks can severely cripple network performance with relatively little effort expended by the attacker. A distributed QoS signaling protocol that is resistant to a class of DoS attacks on signaling is proposed. The signaling protocol provides QoS for real-time traffic and employs mechanisms at the medium access control (MAC) layer, which serve to avoid potential attacks on network resource usage. The key MAC layer mechanisms that provide support for the QoS signaling scheme include sensing of available bandwidth, traffic policing, and rate monitoring, all of which are performed in a distributed manner by the mobile nodes. The proposed signaling scheme achieves a compromise between signaling protocols that require the maintenance of per-flow state and those that are completely stateless. The signaling scheme scales gracefully in terms of the number of nodes and/or traffic flows in the MANET. The authors analyze the security properties of the protocol and present simulation results to demonstrate its resistance to DoS attacks

A framework for end-to-end RSVP context transfer in mobile IPv6

Providing Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees and mobility support for Internet devices has become a hot research topic in the Next Generation Internet research, since mobile computing is getting widespread. Context transfers allow better node mobility support, and avoid re-initiation of signaling to and from a Mobile Node (MN). However, Context Transfer Protocol (CTP) [1] proposed by IETF can not meet the need of end-to-end QoS mechanisms because contexts are only transferred between Access Routers (ARs). This paper presents a framework for end-to-end QoS context transfer based on the architecture of F-HMIPv6, which may provide an end-to-end QoS context transfer for real-time applications, therefore they can get promptly the same forwarding process, minimize the handover service disruption, and avoid initiating the end-to-end QoS signaling from scratch after an MN performs handovers. The Context Transfer Data message containing the QoS context information, a hop-by-hop extension IPv6 option header, is sent from the previous access router (PAR) to the next access router (NAR) via the Mobility Anchor Point (MAP) where old path and new path meet each other. The QoS entities in the nodes between MAP and NAR will be required to check the QoS context information and reserve appropriate resources for MN’s sessions and update the new path data in the QoS entities. After successful context transfers, the resources reserved for MN’s sessions will be released on the old path. Our scheme may also reduce the signaling overhead and handover latencies by adopting the F-HMIPv6 [2] architecture.

Adaptive bandwidth provisioning with explicit respect to QoS requirements

We propose adaptive bandwidth provisioning schemes enabling quality of service (QoS) guarantees. To this end, we exploit periodic measurements and traffic predictions to capture closely traffic dynamics. We make use of the Gaussian traffic model providing bounds for QoS to derive the associated bandwidth demands. Moreover, special attention is paid to alleviating some typical problems with adaptive provisioning like QoS degradations and signaling overhead. Analytical and simulative investigations using real traffic traces show that the proposed schemes outperform previous ones.

Quality of service for SIP sessions in 3GPP-based networks

This letter addresses how quality of service (QoS) for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP)-based multimedia sessions can be realized within the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) architecture. It discusses a scenario for voice over IP (VoIP) to illustrate how relevant QoS mechanisms and signaling protocols such as SIP, Media Gateway Control Protocol (H.248/Megaco), and the Common Open Policy Service (COPS) interact. Related aspects of the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) access network and the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) are explained.

A Modular Approach to Mobile QoS Signaling— Motivation, Design & Implementation

In order to support mobile multimedia applications in next generation wireless IP-based networks, it is necessary to deliver seamless voice, video and data at high quality. Therefore, session mobility and Quality of Service (QoS) for mobile end systems are required. Within this article, the authors point out a new way to approach the problem. Instead of tightly coupling a modified QoS signaling mechanism with a certain mobility mechanism, a more generic and long-term solution is proposed and exemplified on the basis of existing IETF protocols. The connection-less IP network layer is enhanced by a lightweight and truly optional connection-oriented mobile network service, which offers the possibility to establish soft state unicast connections at the network layer. Hence, a connection-oriented network service is available within a radio access network (RAN) architecture to all end systems—mobile or fixed—independent of the application. Thereby, it is possible to integrate QoS and connectivity signaling for mobile end systems, as well as other connection-oriented services like explicit routing or load balancing.

A survey of internet QoS signaling

The need for real-time services support over the Internet drives research efforts toward the provisioning of quality of service (QoS) guarantees in IP networks. Among the various aspects of QoS provisioning, QoS state establishment and maintenance in intermediate routers is a major factor, responsible for dynamic resource allocation. The dynamic manipulation of QoS state is possible through the utilization of appropriate QoS signaling that triggers the respective resource allocation in QoS-capable network elements. At first, protocol design assumed a homogeneous underlying network and resulted in end-to-end QoS protocols that applied a specific QoS configuration in all routers along the path. However, the need for accommodating network heterogeneity and flexibility led to a two-tier resource management model that utilizes separate signaling for intra- and inter-domain reservations and requires different signaling processing in domain interior and border routers. This article gives an overview of the QoS signaling protocols designed for the Internet and describes their characteristics. Moreover, the identified protocols are classified depending on their applicability for intra- or inter-domain usage. A comparison of the various protocols based on some common signaling elements is also provided, and future trends in the Internet QoS signaling area are identified.

Engineering end-to-end IP resilience using resilience-differentiated QoS

Network resilience is becoming a key issue in the design of IP-based multimedia and multiservice networks. The current discussion about IP network resilience centers around MPLS-based recovery mechanisms. Any well designed recovery strategy has to take into account the different resilience requirements of the single traffic flows in order to avoid excessive usage of bandwidth for standby links. Faced with multiple recovery options, an ISP or NSP must decide which flows to protect to what extent against network failures. In this article an extension to existing quality of service (QoS) architectures is presented that integrates the signaling of resilience requirements with the traditional QoS signaling. We refer to this extended QoS model as resilience-differentiated QoS (RD-QoS). At the border of MPLS domains, the resilience requirements can then be directly mapped to the appropriate MPLS recovery options. A traffic engineering process for the provisioning of the resilience classes is introduced, and a case study demonstrates the significant network capacity savings achievable via this approach.