摘要：IP networks are more and more used for transporting distributed applications. Examples are teleconferences or high quality video and audio transmission. Adding such services to IP networks continuously raises the quality of service requirements. As the ''best effort'' service of the IP protocol is not able to fulfill these demands, new mechanisms must be provided in network components. In particular, they must allow data transport with different transmission characteristics. We have investigated these mechanisms by measurements on current network devices like routers and switches in order to find out, what quality of service can be expected in existing networks. Based on the results of theses measurements, we developed a network architecture that is able to fulfil the quality of service demands of all except the most demanding applications on current IP network technology
关键词：IP networks; quality of service; multimedia applications
