Method and apparatus for managing end-to-end quality of service policies in a communication system

A provider edge for managing end-to-end QoS (Quality of Service) policies in a communication network, comprising:

• a packet router at the provider edge;
• and
• a processor for controlling operations of the packet router, wherein the processor is programmed to:
• establish a plurality of QoS domains between a plurality of packet switching technologies operating with disparate QoS policies, each QoS domain having an ingress and egress boundary;
• monitor traffic metrics of packets received from one or more of the plurality of QoS domains among the plurality of packet switching technologies at an ingress boundary, wherein the traffic metrics comprise a QoS policy for each of the received packets, traffic conditions, and the SLA packet traffic constraints of said plurality of QoS domains at said ingress boundary;
• remap the QoS policy for each of the received packets according to said traffic metrics by lowering a transmission priority of the QoS policy of a packet when traffic conditions are above average and below peak traffic conditions established by the SLA;
• and
• transmit the packets with remapped QoS policies.

A method for managing end-to-end QoS (Quality of Service) policies, comprising:

• establishing a plurality of QoS domains between a plurality of packet switching technologies operating with disparate QoS policies, each QoS domain having an ingress and egress boundary;
• monitoring traffic metrics of packets received from one or more of the plurality of QoS domains among the plurality of packet switching technologies at an ingress boundary, wherein the traffic metrics comprise a QoS policy for each of the received packets, traffic conditions, and the SLA packet traffic constraints of said plurality of QoS domains at said ingress boundary;
• remapping the QoS policy for each of the received packets according to said traffic metrics by lowering a transmission priority of the QoS policy of a packet when traffic conditions are above average and below peak traffic conditions established by the SLA;
• transmitting the packets with remapped QoS policies;
• monitoring traffic conditions of packets received from one or more of the plurality of QoS domains at an egress boundary;
• queuing the received packets according to traffic conditions and the QoS policy provided in the remapping step for each of the received packets;
• restoring the QoS policy of each packet exchanged between the egress boundaries of the plurality of QoS domains for the plurality of packet switching technologies;
• and
• transmitting each of the queued packets with their restored QoS policy.