Failure to thrive: QoS and the culture of operational networking

ABSTRACT

Understanding the culture of operational networking can help to illuminate the question of why QoS has floundered. Network administrators have a well-founded aversion to complexity, in part because they experience failures attributable to design complexity on a regular basis. I argue that IP multicast defines a functional limit-case for deployable complexity in today's Internet. That limit is relevant to the deployment of QoS, since many flavors of QoS entail equal or greater complexity.The notion of a functional constraint on complexity draws attention to the economic, historical, and institutional forces which influence the fate of networking technologies. QoS will not be compelling for most network administrators until its design takes account of these forces.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.1 Network Architecture and Design
          Subjects: Packet-switching networks

Additional Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.3 Network Operations
          Subjects: Network management
      C.2.5 Local and Wide-Area Networks
          Subjects: Internet (e.g., TCP/IP)

General Terms:
Design, Economics, Human Factors, Reliability

Keywords:
QoS, complexity, multicast, operational networking