iREX: Architecture for the automation of inter-domain QoS policy using economics

This dissertation presents the inter-domain Resource Exchange (iREX) architecture for the automated deployment of ad-hoc end to end (E2E) inter-domain (ID) quality of service (QoS) policy among multiple Internet Service Providers (ISPs). iREX uses economics and fully distributed mechanisms to allow source domains to self-manage the deployment of E2E ID QoS policy while promoting congestion-avoidance by employing a distributed resource selection process that selects the least congested ID resources for deployment paths.;With iREX, domains advertise its available ID QoS network resources for "sale" to their neighboring domains. Domains receiving these advertisements evaluate and filter the advertised resources according to their price and reputation before disseminating the advertisements to neighboring domains. Source domains needing to deploy E2E ID QoS policy use the advertised resource information to select a source routed path to the destination and establish bilateral agreements directly with each resource provider along the path. A multi-path option is also available to ISPs with a requirement for deployment redundancy.;iREX is an example of a "human-centric" network management architecture, and this dissertation includes empirical and theoretical results showing iREX to not only be possible, but more efficient in terms of setup time, number of coexisting deployed policies and overall Internet congestion when compared to traditional inter-domain resource management methods.