Experience with an IP QoS Physical Testbed: Problems and Research Issues

Abstract

Broadband and Wireless Networking Laboratory Next Generation Internet testbed is setup in collaboration with NASA Qbed for prototyping the emerging QoS networking technologies. Internet2’s backbone network, Abilene, is used to connect the BWN testbed with several others spread throughout USA. The testbed has been setup to support MPLS Traffic Engineering and Differentiated Services. Experiments have been conducted to gain a better understanding and evaluate the performance of the current protocols to facilitate their deployment in operational networks. We have proposed new schemes for improving end-to-end QoS guarantees and are studying the advantages and disadvantages of using DiffServ and MPLS in a heterogeneous traffic environment. The research will help next generation routers to recognize multimedia traffic types and their QoS expectations not only by research but also experimentally on the physical testbed.