Quality of Service on GÉANT2

GÉANT2 brings with it renewed emphasis on providing appropriate levels of quality of service (QoS) to address the needs of a diverse user base. For the most demanding of these users, the quality and performance of the network must remain one step ahead of those of services available in the commercial market.

The basic goal of QoS is to provide service differentiation between IP packets in the network. This service differentiation is noticeable during periods of network congestion (i.e. in case of contention for resources) and results in different levels of network performance. Classes of service are implemented as a means of managing network traffic.

The default IP service on GÉANT2, as on GÉANT, is Best Effort (described in more detail in the page linked in the left-hand menu). However, additional classes of service have also been implemented to allow network engineers to mark some network traffic as either more important or less important than standard traffic.

The table below summarises which classes of service are available for which network protocols and services on GÉANT2.

^{* No native IPv6 QoS will be implemented initially, but IPv6 can be tunneled over MPLS LSPs to provide QoS.}

The table below shows proposed QoS classes of service on GÉANT2, and the user types that will be addressed by those services.

The IP QoS scheme that has been implemented on GÉANT has been carried forward to GÉANT2. However, greater emphasis is being placed on expanding service guarantees beyond the bounds of GÉANT2 to its connected NRENs.