Abstract

Internet/telecommunications convergence and the fact that IP is becoming the ubiquitous multi-service delivery platform is leading to the separation of service and network concerns, with distinct roles of Service Provider (SP) and IP Network Provider (INP). SPs have started to deploy added-value services in addition to plain Internet access. Given the best-effort nature of the Internet and the current lack of inter-domain QoS, providing such demanding services over multiple administrative domains is difficult. This is of immediate concern to telcos who are in the process of migrating traditional telephony services to VoIP. AGAVE aims at solving the problem of end-to-end service provisioning over IP networks by studying, developing, and validating a new inter-domain architecture based on Network Planes that will allow multiple INPs to provide Parallel Internets tailored to service requirements.

AGAVE will specify an open connectivity service provisioning interface to allow SPs to interact with underlying INP network resources for the provision of end-to-end IP-based added-value services. The project will investigate a range of Traffic Engineering techniques to realise Network Planes and Parallel Internets, depending on service requirements and the capabilities of transit domains. A lightweight QoS approach will be developed, based on the principles of differentiated routing with inherent load balancing and resilience, without requiring universal deployment of differentiated forwarding. The proposed solution will be deployable with small incremental additions to the existing best-effort Internet.

The validity and performance of the proposed architecture will be evaluated through simulations and prototype implementations of the developed approaches and protocols. The project will actively contribute to standardisation activities in this area, most notably to the IETF and the IPsphere Forum.