Cisco Networking Simplified, Second Edition

Chapter . Quality of Service

Converged Networks and QoS

Traditionally, computer networks transported data applications and provided file storage services. The modern business network is also the communications backbone, supporting many applications, including delay-sensitive data, but also voice, high-quality video, and web-based conferencing and collaboration. Because the network is now a communications backbone, it must provide predictable, measurable, and sometimes guaranteed services.

But the network has finite resources in terms of bandwidth, how many packets can be switched and routed through it, and how quickly packets can be passed to their destinations. To provide a communications backbone, the network must manage its resources to provide ...