Quality of service: Part 2. Route at the edge, switch at the core

Almost any network can take advantage of QoS techniques, whether it's a small independent LAN, an enterprisewide layout, or an internet service provider. Obviously the larger the network, the more QoS options there are. The level of complexity also rises with larger networks. We've managed to just barely skim the surface of QoS in this two-part series. Table 3 is offered as a quick summary of this discussion. Cranking through some of the details can be time consuming, but very interesting. Understanding QoS details can sometimes get burdensome due to the extent of rules-based routing described above and the few billion acronyms. One of my favorites that I came across was backward explicit congestion notification (BECN). I can just envision saying to our network manager, "Using the Orbison Model, I think that my backward explicit congestion notification is set too high." Of course, then you must be ready when they ask, at do you mean by that?" (Especially since I made up the "Orbison M odel".