JRA3 - Bandwidth Allocation and Reservation


GN2-JRA3 is about the investigation and development of a mainly connection-oriented, end-to-end (therefore multi-domain) “Bandwidth Allocation and Reservation Service” - in other words a “Bandwidth on Demand” (BoD) service.

The term “connection-oriented” has been used in order to highlight the fact that the bandwidth should be reserved, not contended, (preferably) exhibit deterministic performance and be logically separated from other traffic sharing the network.

Thus, the use of technologies such as MPLS LSPs (preferably augmented with some sort of packet-based QoS - although this may only come later in many cases), native (and emulated) layer-2 channels (particularly Ethernet), TDM channels (based on SONET/SDH), native layer one wavelengths on fibre (“lambdas”) and even dedicated dark fibre are all considered to be in scope. The research on the end-to-end Premium IP capacity reservation service (based on Differentiated Service QoS) is specifically considered to be out of scope of this research activity, since this falls within the remit of SA3.

However, the multi-domain focus of JRA3 means that a significant amount of the effort will need to address delivery of End-to-end (E2E) BoD services in a heterogeneous environment. This means that the integration of different underlying technologies in different domains, including those in which Premium IP is the only mechanism for delivering a BoD service, is considered to be in scope. JRA3 will develop and maintain links with any relevant project and, where possible, aim to re-use or adapt useful results. To facilitate and maintain these close ties with other projects, and with other GN2 activities, a dedicated liaison task will be established as part of the overall JRA3 management effort.