Towards a formal model for QoS specification and handling in networks

Many QoS management functions (such as routing) are dependent on the type and quality of QoS specification. Moreover, QoS may be provided along a path traversing various administrative domains where different QoS solutions exist. In consequence, the QoS specification should be clear, useful for allocating resources and verifiable. It also should be described with a common (formal) language. No work has given complete formal operators to manipulate and reason about QoS. The aim of this paper is the proposal of a generic framework for formalizing the concept of QoS and the associated operations. This framework may be used to better understand QoS and to define and implement solutions for QoS management functions. This framework is a step towards a better capitalization of the experiments and results on the specification of the QoS to define standard languages and models necessary for efficient and global deployment of QoS over the future networks.