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Networking: Striving for QoS
7/21/2005
RSVP. RSVP is another form of QoS that guarantees effective transport of traffic across a network. It works with routers along the entire path to reserve resources at each node along the path. Basically, RSVP carves out a guaranteed connection from end to end, for each transmission.
Bandwidth shaping and limiting. In addition to QoS, bandwidth shaping or limiting may be necessary to ensure that heavy users (like students downloading “non-school related materials”) do not impede the bandwidth needed by converged network applications. Bandwidth limiting can set a threshold on the maximum amount of bandwidth one individual can use; this prevents a user from monopolizing the campus network bandwidth and potentially jeopardizing needed bandwidth for other applications and users. Packeteer (www.packeteer.com) is one vendor offering products for bandwidth control, QoS, and management.
Getting Started
If your institution is moving to a converged network, some consideration must first go into the data network, to ensure that the traffic plays nice and follows the rules. Initially, your campus IT department should examine the network to see if it is up to handling the added bandwidth that voice, and especially video, introduce. Once the network is in shape, QoS and, potentially, bandwidth shaping and limiting can be introduced to ensure proper delivery of voice/video traffic.
In the end, the goal is to make sure your voice and video traffic will get along, providing your campus with a state-of-the-art, multimedia-rich network.
Peter Gray is a Network Systems Consultants with Elert &
Associates, an independent technology consultancy (www.elert.com).
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