What Is QoS?

Quality of service is a broad term encompassing the means by which to predict and manage a variety of system-wide resources that are important to the runtime performance of an application. Since computing resources, such as network bandwidth, are limited, they must be managed so they are useful and predictable to those who use it.

Consider two perpendicular streets that meet at a four-way intersection. If the amount of traffic on each street is light, the flow of traffic on both streets is fast. As traffic increases on the two streets, the flow of traffic comes to a standstill as a result of uncontrolled gridlock at the intersection. As this happens, the amount of time needed to cross the intersection is unpredictable, and the two ...

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