Edge-based point-to-multipoint quality of service guarantees in private networks

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) have become the solution of choice for site-to-site enterprise networking needs. VPNs allow geographically spread-out locations to communicate in a secure and reliable fashion. Service providers have recognized that with increase in the number of VPNs and their size, simple meshed architectures that connect customer sites with peak bandwidth reservations are not scalable solutions, The current growth in size and complexity of customer networks can be sustained only if efficient solutions are evolved to design and provision VPNs.; In this thesis we design, implement and evaluate new architectures to provision IP VPNs. Any solution that is deployable features minimal and inexpensive upgrades to existing hardware and software of the core networks. Thus the main theme of our solutions is the approach of leveraging the existing core network infrastructure and building new intelligence at the network edge, hence the term "Edge-based".; There are important limitations in existing architectures with reference to point-to-multipoint QoS for VPN-like applications: (a) they have either concentrated on point-to-point models or have relied on complex signaling-based mechanisms in the core network; (b) they rely on precise specification of customer traffic to provide bounds on QoS metrics whereas such information is hard to come by in reality.; In this thesis we propose new models to provision point-to-multipoint QoS that overcome these limitations. We propose edge-based solutions that are easily deployed and managed. We outline mechanisms to learn customer traffic characteristics exploiting existing SNMP measurement infrastructure and examine the proposals with real data from a large IP VPN service provider. In addition we outline an analytical framework resulting in simple admission control conditions that facilitate decoupling computation of QoS assurances from instantaneous traffic characteristics. We are able to provide bounds on QoS metrics independent of the nature of customer traffic information given just a topology and routing scheme with appropriate edge-based admission control components.; In summary, this thesis provides a new edge-based architecture for efficient provisioning of a-priori point-to-multipoint QoS and the tools required for deployment with existing Internet Service Provider (ISP) infrastructure.