ABSTRACT
As the Internet and private internets grow in scale, a host of new demands march steadily into view. Historically, Internet Protocol-based internets have been able to provide a simple best-effort delivery service to all applications using an internet. Three concepts relating to data flows form the basis of Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) operation: session, flow specification, and filter specification. RSVP provides a solid foundation for the next generation of internets. Multicast transmission presents a much more compelling case for implementing resource reservation. An internet resource reservation scheme must interact with a dynamic routing strategy that allows the route followed by packets of a given transmission to change. In the absence of reverse routing information from the routing protocol, RSVP provides this with the Path message. A sender needs to provide the routers with the traffic characteristics of the transmission, but it is the receivers that must specify the desired quality of service.
