ITU-T RACF implementation for application-driven QoS control in MPLS networks

Within the ITU-T Next Generation Network (NGN) architecture, the Resource Admission Control Function (RACF) has been designated to perform the application-driven QoS control across both access and core networks. However, an actual RACF implementation acting on MPLS metro-core networks does not exist since RACF lacks of the capability to configure QoS policies on MPLS network nodes. This prevents an effective end-to-end QoS control in a metro-core scenario on a per-application basis. This work presents a specific implementation of RACF operating over an MPLS network domain. This RACF implementation is applied to a testbed where a Video Client application requests a real-time video data transfer from a Video Server through an MPLS network. The admission control is performed upon service request based on video requirements and network resource availability. The differentiated traffic treatment on per-flow basis is realized through setting of MPLS DiffServ-aware Traffic Engineering (TE) capabilities using the NETCONF protocol. Effective traffic differentiation is achieved in a multi-service network scenario and thus it validates NETCONF as candidate protocol for policy provisioning in MPLS networks.