Reservation Mechanisms for Efficient Resource Management in Internetworks

Distributed multimedia applications with quality of service requirements that must be guaranteed by the underlying network are evolving at a fast pace. Resource reservation protocols are essential to enable efficient resource management in internetworks. We survey existing resource reservation protocols and the reservation styles they support. Current protocols do not permit different reservation styles to be combined within the same session. We show, using simulation of realistic scenarios that allowing different reservation styles to coexist within the same session yields more efficient management of resources and provides more satisfactory service to the applications. We then show the need for shared dynamic reservation styles which allow the users to switch between sources without the possibility of service interruption. A complete mechanism for implementing the shared dynamic reservation style is proposed, along with three techniques to enhance its effectiveness in managing the network resources. The effectiveness of these three techniques is evaluated using simulation.