Flexibility, Timeliness and Efficiency over Ethernet

In the Internet Age, many new services are being created everyday, some of which will require real-time support, e.g. voice over IP, videoconference, remote monitoring of control processes, streaming services. To fulfil the requirements of such services, proper Quality-of-Service control mechanisms must be used either by transit networks as well as by access networks. In the first case, there are a few technologies that already support such mechanisms, e.g. ATM and Frame Relay. In what concerns the latter type, the main technology used is Ethernet for which the development of efficient QoS control mechanisms is particularly relevant. This paper summarises the materials presented in [11] concerning the QoS aspects of timeliness (real-time behaviour), flexibility and efficiency, as well as a new protocol, FTT-Ethernet. Finally the paper discusses the advantages that may arise from using switches to support the new protocol.