An architecture and implementation for IP network and service quality measurements

Abstract

Network and service performance measurements are essential in IF (Internet Protocol) networks, e.g., for network management, network monitoring, and service quality assurance. In order to measure the service quality received by individual users, a service-specific measurement system is required. Therefore, this paper develops and implements the Network and Service Quality Measurement (NSQM) architecture, which integrates network- and service-specific measurements and can configure all measurement components on demand and according to service signaling in order to setup network-wide measurements in an automated manner. NSQM supports the correlation of measurement data from multiple locations, enabling the determination of link-specific and end-to-end performance characteristics. NSQM allows for measurements at different aggregation levels, including service-class and per-flow measurements. It integrates both active and passive measurements and supports a fine-grained selection of traffic to be measured, which reduces the amount of measurement data to be collected and processed.