QoS - In Depth - Part 1 Of 10

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This is an introduction to the planning for QoS [Quality of Service] and SLA [Service Level Agreement]. Simply, your performance is QoS and the guarantee is the SLA. That is, if you are not receiving the desired QoS from your provider, you refer to the SLA for correction, remedy or arbitration. Neither QoS or SLA is a single element or single approach. This approach was developed after many months of research but does not include all the issues required.

This is more of a framework to begin a dialog. Here are some basic definitions of terms:

QoS [Quality of Service]: Level of performance specified in the SLA and measured/managed by the provider.

CoS [Class of Service]: According to Alcatel, “CoS is organizing the traffic, especially time-sensitive traffic, can be a problem, and without some type of structure, delays and congestion can occur. CoS groups similar types of traffic together into logical classes.” That is, QoS has subgroups of CoS.

SLA [Service Level Agreement]: As defined by the IETF [Internet Engineering Task Force] “specifies the forwarding service a customer should receive.”

TCA [Traffic Conditioning Agreement]: As defined by the IETF “specifies the classifier rules and any corresponding traffic profiles and metering, marking, discarding and/shaping rules which apply.”

SLS [Service Level Specification]: A set of parameters and their values which together define the service level offered to a traffic stream.

DS [Differential Service] Domain: A set of specifications for different levels of services.

TCS [Traffic Conditioning Specification]: A set of parameters and their values which together specify a set of classifier rules and traffic profile. A TCS is an integral element of an SLS/SLA.

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[tags]qos,cos,sla,tca,sls,tcs[/tags]