A Framework for the Provision of Network Quality of Service for Enterprise Resource Planning Systems

This paper presents research into the use of network Quality of Service (QoS) technologies to improve the performance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. The paper explores state-of-the-art QoS technologies and implementations and provides a framework for the provision of QoS for ERP systems that utilize Internet Protocol (IP) networks. Four individual case studies, including both leading ERP vendors and network technology vendors, were conducted. Cross-case analysis confirmed that the traditional approaches for ensuring the performance of ERP systems on IP networks do not address network congestion and latency effectively, nor do they offer guaranteed network service quality for ERP systems. Moreover, cross-case comparative data analysis also reviewed existing QoS implementations and suggested that while QoS is being acknowledged increasingly by enterprises as an important issue, its deployment remains limited. The proposed framework focuses on providing a structured approach to implement end-to-end IP QoS that accommodates both ERP systems and their Web-enabled versions, based on traffic classification mechanisms.