An architecture for automated QoS resolution in wireless systems

The pervasive nature of mobile and wireless systems has led to increased concerns over quality of service (QoS). In the prevailing models for QoS management, QoS resolution is achieved by table look-up, a feature that makes table access the focal point of activity. This approach suffers from two limitations, namely, an inability to deal with unexpected QoS requests, and a reliance on human intervention for update of information. This paper is concerned with the presentation of an architecture for supporting automated QoS resolution through verification. The architecture is modular and the QoS resolution function is performed by a subsidiary component, which combines knowledge base with resolution mechanism. This separation of concerns and the support for flexible QoS management has the advantage of accommodating new forms of QoS requests, and of minimising human intervention. An implementation of the QoS resolution architecture is presented in terms of timed automata. In addition, a framework is also introduced for extending QoS architectures such as ITSUMO.