SLA-based QoS Pricing Polices In DiffServ Network

With the development of Internet and the wild application of IP technology, the comsumers'requirements for the multimedia services and real-time communication services in IP network are increasing day by day.These multimedia informations require the IP networks provide guaranteed QoS. The best-effort service which is wildly used in IP networks now no longer meets the demands of QoS.The problem of QoS has become a core issue in morden communication network.About how to support guaranteed QoS in IP network, many researches have been made. IETF ( Internet Engineering Task Force ) has bring forward several solutions,including IntServ,DiffServ,MPLS and TE.The DiffServ model has been the preferred scenario and hotspot to offer guaranteed QoS in IP network because of it's simpleness and scalebility.As the development of QoS and services differentiation,pricing plays a new role in the system of DiffServ.Charging in the DiffServ network can not only depend on the amount of traffic and congestion,but also depend on the guaranteed QoS paraments.Charging for QoS can be the incentive of reasonable distribution of resource,as well as make the maximum benefit of network provider maximize.The reasonable pricing system makes comsumers choose their QoS demands according to their real requirements.It can avoid the waste of network resource due to the unlimited QoS demands.The SLAs ,which is negotiated between comsumers and providers,include the comsumers' demands of QoS and characterizations of traffic profiles.So,the amout of required reresources to guarantee the services' QoS is decided. It can be accordingly used as the basis of prcing and charging.This article analyzes the pricing and charging polices in the DiffServ network, and evaluates the presented polices base on studying the DiffServ network QoS guarantee technology and the content of Service Level Agreement (SLA).This article points out that the researches about the pricing and charging issue in DiffServ network can't solve the contradictions among the value maximization, source distribution fairness and implement simplicity. It can realize the QoS pricing base on the traffic profiles in the SLAs, and so the contradictions can be resolved in some degrees.This article detailedly analyzes the implement mechanisms of two typical services: Premium Services (PS) and Asured Services (AS), and accordingly presents the particular algorithms for the two services.And then it introduces a possible architecture for implementing the pricing and charging police of this artile in a DiffServ network.