There is a white paper on the Sun Web site covering the SolarisTM Bandwidth Manager Software, titled "Tech Concepts: Enterprise QoS Policy Based Systems and Network Management" by Deepak Kakadia, Sun, Staff Engineer, Networking Software Enterprise Engineering.

QoS Policy Based Network and Systems Management refers to the capability of Networks and Computing Systems to control access to Networking and Computing resources. This form of management uses policies that reflect business goals in an automated manner. Policy Based Systems are able to determine deployment based upon load measurements, network congestion, restriction and prioritization of access, and allowance of free access. There are several QoS solutions offered by equipment vendors, service providers, and software vendors that are targeted towards the enterprise customer.

The paper provides an overview of QoS and policy fundamentals and describes how these technologies fit in the various segments within the overall "end to end" solution. Performance results are presented, along with comparisons based on different traffic types and architectures. The analysis illustrates the advantages of introducing differentiated services deployed on certain architectures. A proposed integrated solution is described, using SunTM Management Center 3.0 APIs to send server load feedback to the Policy Server, and using Solaris Bandwidth Manager 1.6 APIs to dynamically reconfigure the QoS capable network device.

Different classes of applications have very different network and computing requirements. The challenge is to align the Network and Computing Services to the application's service requirements from a performance perspective. There are two approaches to satisfy the service requirements of applications:

• Overprovisioning is an overallocation of resources that meet or exceed peak load requirements

• Managing and controlling allocation of Network and Computing resources

Customers that are deploying mission-critical applications and real time applications have an economic incentive to invest in QoS capabilities, so that acceptable response times are guaranteed within certain tolerances.

As enterprise networks grow, so do complexities in effectively managing computing and network resources. Policy Based Systems and Network Management Systems allow administrators to automate many key labor intensive tasks so that overall productivity increases. QoS policies provide the capability to re-provision static, fixed QoS configurations, according to changing business needs, under certain conditions. Policies not only relieve administrators from manual reconfigurations, but also make optimal use of available resources by continually monitoring and automating actions based on thresholds.

There are additional technical details and illustrations on the Web site:

http://www.sun.com/software/bandwidth/wp-policy

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