QoS Mapping: A Framework Model for Mapping Network Loss to Application Loss

Today's Internet provides only a single Class of Service (CoS) to all of its services (e.g., Multimedia, Data, Audio), namely the best-effort service. This service does not make any guarantees on the Quality of Service (QoS) an application receives. The continuous demands for QoS guarantees have led to the introduction of various network-layer mechanisms that provide some end-to-end QoS assurance including MPLS, Integrated Service Model (IntServ), and Differentiated Service Model (DiffServ). However, the QoS mapping between the network-layer and the application-layer is still a challenge and needs to be addressed. To guarantee and end-to-end QoS, it is essential to map QoS parameters between these layers. A framework for investigating the mapping of the packet loss rate as an important QoS parameter is presented here. The network QoS performance characteristic for the loss parameter is mapped from lower to upper layer in a quantifiable way.