An engineering approach to computer networking: ATM networks, the Internet, and the telephone network
An Active Network Approach to Virtual Private Networks
ISCC '02 Proceedings of the Seventh International Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC'02)
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This paper aims at shading some light on the concept of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and on their usefulness in the context of the so-called Premium IP Networks. Such networks provide users with a portfolio of services, thanks to their intrinsic capability to perform a service creation process while relying on a QoS-enabled infrastructure. We will introduce a definition of SLAs and we will then focus on an actual example, namely the negotiation and management of QoS-aware Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).We believe that VPNs are a significant application due both to their importance in corporate scenarios and to the high revenues they guarantee to service providers. We will discuss the issues related to the effective SLA-based management of resources in those cases where the need arises for an entity that is capable of optimizing resource utilization in the presence of network infrastructures shared by a community of users. Finally, a novel component, named SLA Manager, that accomplishes these tasks, will be presented.