On QOS Mapping in Multimedia Networks

A framework for studying QOS mapping between various levels in the information transport protocol stack and a platform for evaluating the mapping rules by performing concurrent network and application level measurements of QOS are presented. An empirical loss mapping rule between the application (frame) level and network (cell) level is given. The rule was tested using two 10 minutes motion JPEG video clips and a 30 minutes MPEG-2 VBR video clip under 55 different network load conditions and gives results within a 3% error margin. 1. Introduction The ability to satisfy quality of service (QOS) is one of the key requirements of ATM networks. The task of guaranteeing end-to-end QOS requires the understanding of the various levels of QOS of the protocol stack. For example, switch vendors are typically concerned only with per-hop, per-class cell-level QOS while applications with multimedia streams are only concerned with end-to-end, per connection frame-level QOS. It is the end-to-end QOS..