Edge Provisioning and Fairness in VPN-DiffServ Networks [Vol. 10, No. 1, 2002]

Edge Provisioning and Fairness in VPN-DiffServ Networks

Ibrahim Khalil
PONTE Communications
1921 Plymouth Street
Mountain View, 94043 CA
USA
Email: ibrahim_AT_iam.unibe.ch,

Torsten Braun
Institute for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics (IAM)
University of Berne
Neubruckstrasse 10, CH-3012 Bern
Switzerland
Email: braun_AT_iam.unibe.ch

Abstract
Customers of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) over Differentiated Services (DiffServ) infrastructure are most likely to demand not only security but also guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) in pursuance of their desire to have leased line like services. However, expectedly, they will be unable or unwilling to predict the load between VPN endpoints. This paper proposes that customers specify their requirements as a range of quantitative service in the Service Level Agreements (SLAs). To support such services Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would need an automated provisioning system that can logically partition the capacity at the edges to various classes (or groups) of VPN connections and manage them efficiently to allow resource sharing among the groups in a dynamic and fair manner. While with edge provisioning a certain amount of resources based on SLAs (traffic contract at edge) are allocated to VPN connections, we also need to provision the interior nodes of a transit network to meet the assurances offered at the boundaries of the network. We, therefore, propose a two-layered model to provision such VPN-DiffServ Networks where the top layer is responsible for edge provisioning and drives the lower layer in charge of interior resource provisioning with the help of a Bandwidth Broker (BB). Various algorithms with examples and analyses are presented to provision and allocate resources dynamically at the edges for VPN connections. We have developed a prototype BB performing the required provisioning and connection admission.

Keywords: Virtual Private Network (VPN), Differentiated Services (DiffServ), Quality of Service (QoS), Bandwidth Broker (BB), Service Level Agreement (SLA), Connection Admission, Resource Provisioning, Fairness, Dynamic Configuration.

JNSM: Vol. 10, No. 1, 2002 Edge Provisioning and Fairness in VPN-DiffServ Networks [Vol. 10, No. 1, 2002]

NOTE: only abstract of paper available on-line; please contact your library or the authors for the full paper

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