Quality of service for Internet traffic over ATM service categories

Connecting enterprise sites requires innovative architectures. Virtual priv ate networks (VPNs) linking different organizational sites over the Interne t are a popular solution. Internet traffic, however, is rapidly growing and becoming increasingly diverse. There is a strong need for quality of servi ce (QoS) support in the Internet. Asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) backbone s supporting QoS are already widely deployed in carrier networks. ATM offer s a number of service categories. Each of the ATM services has its merits a nd limitations, so a tradeoff is necessary in selecting the service categor y for carrying Internet traffic between enterprise sites. In this paper, we compare the ATM service categories in terms of cost, buff er requirements, and performance with Internet traffic. We find that the AT M available bit rate (ABR) service provides a good synergy with the emergin g Internet technologies for supporting end-to-end QoS. Connecting enterpris e networks by ABR virtual path connections can guarantee quality of service and minimize queuing delay and loss in the backbone. In addition, it provi des flexibility in supporting various implementations at the edge devices.