METHOD AND NETWORK NODE FOR DETERMINING A CHARACTERISTIC VARIABLE FOR THE QUALITY OF SERVICE OF A NETWORK PATH

摘要

The invention relates to a method for determining a characteristic variable (Q) for the quality of service of an end-to-end network path (R1) in a connection-oriented packet-switched multi-hop network, with a network management means which specifies at least one quality of service feature for each data link in the network path in ISO/OSI layer 2, which method comprises the following steps: a) a data packet having at least one data storage structure for storing quality of service features is transmitted along the network path (R1); b) each network node in the network path determines a measure of at least one quality of service feature, which relates to this network node and is specified in ISO/OSI layer 2, and stores this value in the at least one data storage structure of the data packet; c) at least one network node which receives the data packet applies the following characteristic variable function to the quality of service features stored in the data packet in order to calculate the characteristic variable (Q) which describes the quality of service: (Q), wherein, in the characteristic variable function, qi and qj are the values of an ith and jth quality of service feature which are stored in the data packet, Ci and cj are selectable weighting parameters for the values of the ith and jth quality of service features which are stored in the data packet, ε is a selectable constant greater than zero and M, Ni for all i, and O are different disjoint sets of identifiers for the values of the stored quality of service features or the weighting parameters thereof.