Toward IP virtual private network quality of service: a service provider perspective

To complement classical enterprise wide area network infrastructures, IP (based) virtual private networks have been gaining ground, with the capability of offering cost-effective, secure, and private-network-like services. In order to provision the equivalent quality of service of legacy connection-oriented layer 2 virtual private networks (VPNs), IP VPNs have to overcome the intrinsically best effort characteristics of the Internet in this multimedia era. This article discusses the IP VPN quality of service (QoS) issue from a service provider point of view, where QoS guarantees are carried out at the network level as well as at the node level. It presents the whole picture by highlighting and stitching together various QoS enabling technologies from previous research and engineering work.