QoS-adaptation by software agents in the presence of defective reservation mechanisms in the Internet

Originally, the Internet delivered best-effort service quality with respect to end-to-end delay. Recently, extensions such as RSVP have been proposed to provide guaranteed real-time services as well. Unfortunately, network resources, such as routers, do not yet fully, support RSVP reservation protocols so that guarantees cannot truly be given. We suggest to follow the paradigm of open programmable networks for a more complete QoS provisioning. Reservation gaps or tunnels are dynamically closed by means of a software agent approach that is flexibly deployed for an application oriented QoS support. Agents are dynamically located to such tunnels in order to monitor the tunnels, to provide feedback information in case of QoS violations, and to decide on possible compensating measures to be taken