Client-Network Interaction in a Real-Time Communication Environment

			Jean Ramaerkers and Giorgio Ventre

In the recent years new protocols and algorithms have been proposed in
order to guarantee performance and reliability in high-speed computer
networks, and new services have been presented to allow cooperative
office work, distributed conferencing, etc.  Less attention has been
paid to how applications and, more generally, clients of real-time
communication services can interact with the network in order to
specify and negotiate the quality of service (QOS) of a connection.
We believe that this problem is going to become a key issue for the
success of future distributed systems, since it affects both client
and network performances.  In this paper we present a model for the
client-network interaction developed for the Tenet real-time protocol
suite; the model includes new mechanisms for the establishment and
runtime management of real-time connections.  By improving the
information exchanged between the network and the clients, the model
allows to reduce the complexity and the time required to establish a
real-time connection, and increases the network utilization.
Additionally, we introduced a new class of real-time communication
service to support adaptive quality of service, in order to enhance
the chances of the network to face congestion situations.