An Architecture for End-to-End QoS Provisioning in Next Generation Networks: the IMAGES project

The paper proposes a novel architecture for End-to-End Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning in an heterogeneous network environment. The rationale is based on the concept to design a technology-independent architecture. Three different planes with different functionalities are introduced to realize that concept, namely Service Control Plane, Network Resource Control Plane and Transport Plane. The present work is basically focused on the Network Resource Control Plane, its functional elements, databases and algorithms to realize a real converged network with QoS guarantees. The paper shows the first results achieved in the system architecture design within the IMAGES project (Integrated Multiservice Architectures for next GEneration Services [1]), granted in the European Eureka Programme, within the CELTIC Initiative.