looking at portions of it, as is most common
today. Policy-based management might well
be applied, also accommodating the dynamics
of the network and the usage/traffic flows.- Integrated control and management. To some
extent control and management procedures
may perform similar tasks, like establishing an
MPLS path. Therefore, figuring out efficient
ways of combining control and management
is needed. - Applications and service discovery. Applica-
tions must be upgraded to be aware of the ser-
vices and service levels offered by a network.
Functions for discovery and negotiation
should therefore be present, both in the termi-
nals/applications and in the network. In addi-
tion, applications should provide estimates of
their requests from the network, like estimates
of the traffic flow characteristics (traffic pro-
file). - Controlling traffic flows. In several of today’s
IP-based networks, TCP is used for flow con-
trol. This should also work properly even
when several service levels are introduced. In
addition, controlling the traffic flow in other
ways may be possible. One example is using
dynamic charging schemes, which is investi-
gated although not concluded on. - Completing standards. For efficient imple-
mentation of control and management
regimes, standards are crucial. Appropriate
standards, e.g. for RSVP, policy and SLA
management, are needed.
6.3.3 Business Concerns
Deciding upon QoS and internal arrangements
for handling traffic are parts in the business
activities. Moreover, when settling the appropri-
ate value parameters and utilisation of mecha-
nisms, one would likely face several trade-offs,
like what level to offer at what price, which
mechanisms to implement within its domain,
and so forth. Similar trade-offs have already
been parts of the business decision process.
Therefore these aspects may smoothly fit into
those concerns.
Carrying out business-related evaluations, the
market situation is taken into account. Potential
customers’ requests, competitors’ activities, reg-
ulatory directives, etc. would be considered.
Bearing in mind that service degradations/fail-
ures may occur, stating conditions in the agree-
ments can be looked upon as risk taking. That is,
damages/penalties in case an event happens are
balanced against the cost of the means under-
taken in order to lower the probability of the
event occurring. Lower cost is commonly
sought, while major negative consequences are
avoided. Balancing internal mechanisms and the
conditions stated in agreements towards any sub-
providers would also be part of this picture as
seen by a provider.A few issues related to business are listed in the
following:- Processes and data flows. An adequate model
of processes and flows related to a provider is
needed to implement systems allowing fast,
accurate and automatic service provision/
delivery. Considering that several sources and
databases may be involved, keeping consisten-
cies and collecting relevant data may be a
challenge, in particular when the data bases
are managed by different providers. - Cost – revenue analysis of related mecha-
nisms. There still seems to be two overall sug-
gestions to the QoS challenges: i) introducing
more QoS-related mechanisms; or, ii) intro-
ducing more capacity, keeping the network/
system simple. An analysis of this could be
conducted, estimating any real benefit from
having ensured and differentiated IP-based
services. - Optimising services, resources and SLA con-
ditions. What service classes to offer, how to
deploy the network resources optimally, how
to state and balance SLA terms towards users
and secondary providers against the need for
own resources, are a few questions that need
to be answered by a provider. Hence, methods
to assist a provider in searching for the
answers are needed. A user does not com-
monly specify their quality needs merely from
a communication point of view, but rather
from the consequences they envisage on their
business and human relations – the secondary
scope – if a failure occurs. This also deter-
mines the level of QoS they are willing to pay
for regarding a specific service ordered. - Then, guidelines to a way of assisting the cus-
tomer in structuring the consequences that
they might envisage – both in primary and
secondary scope – would be requested. - Accounting, charging and billing. In introduc-
ing a set of service classes, tariffing schemes
have to be defined as well. Considering inter-
connections, schemes and mechanisms for ex-
changing accounting data is also necessary. - Communicating with the human end-user. Of
particular interest are the QoS parameters that
communicate well and unambiguously to the
non-professional users – i.e. residential end-
users. Imperative to all parameters is that they