A framework for QoS updates in a networking environment

The support of sufficient Quality-of-Service (QoS) for applications residing in a distributed environment and running on top of high performance networks is a demanding issue. Currently, the areas to provide this support adequately include communication protocols, operating systems support, and offered network services. A configurable approach of communication protocols offers the needed protocol flexibility to react accordingly on various different requirements. Protocol and operating system internal parameters (such as window sizes, retry counters, or scheduling mechanisms) rely very closely on requested application-oriented or network-dependent QoS. Therefore, these parameters have to be updated due to network changes, such as congestion, to adjust a temporary or semi-permanent "out-of-tune" service behavior. The framework offers a feasible approach of dealing with these updates.