End-To-End Service Quality for Latency-Intensive Internet Protocol (IP) Applications in a Heterogeneous, Multi-Vendor Environment

摘要

Apparatus and methods are provided for delivering end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. According to one embodiment, a portion of available bandwidth between a first and second network device is reserved as a Quality of Service (QoS) resource pool for real-time communication sessions among users of a first and second user community. The first network device is communicatively coupled with a packet network and associated with the first user community. The second network device is communicatively coupled with the packet network and associated with the second user community. End-to-end application QoS is provided between the first and second user communities by selectively admitting real-time communication sessions between the first user community and the second user community based upon currently available resources associated with the QoS resource pool and multiplexing the real-time communication sessions over a reservation protocol session between the first and second network devices.