On the performance of COPS-PR and NETCONF in an integrated management environment for DiffServ-enabled networks

Although COPS-PR is a policy management protocol already found in commercial network equipments, the IETF has been also working on the standardization of the NETCONF protocol, which can be seen as a competing solution when employed for QoS management. NETCONF seems to have the potential to become a feasible alternative to the established management protocols (e.g., SNMP), but few is known about its behavior and performance when it is used together with COPSPR. In this paper we present and evaluation of NETCONF and COPS-PR in a management environment for DiffServ-enabled networks. NETCONF to COPS-PR gateways have been developed in order to integrated COPS-PR commercial equipments into networks managed via NETCONF-capable management stations. Through such gateways a set of evaluations have been performed in order to draw the picture of integrated NETCONF and COPS-PR for QoS management. The results presented in this paper can help network operators in selecting adequate management setups, as well as provide guidelines for the improvement of NETCONF.