Differential Availability & Bandwidth Management

In this paper we propose the concept of differential availability, a novel way of looking at the QoS based service availability, and describe its implications in traffic provisioning and bandwidth management. The general term of network availability is no longer suitable when it comes to the converging network with different QoS traffic. In the current study, we try to address the issues related to the network providing graded services, by proposing a service-oriented way of looking at the problem. We define the term differential availability based on the QoS service-specific constraints, like latency, packet loss, link utilization, and discuss its impacts on the traffic mix and bandwidth allocation. The method is useful in determining the traffic mix for different classes of traffic, defining the service level agreements (SLAs), and for maximizing the network utilization & revenue