The networks in an organization carry multiple types of traffic. Some of this traffic is very critical to business, while some other traffic might just be internet browsing. Furthermore, the traffic on the network could be from an ongoing Voice over IP (VoIP) call that is real-time traffic, or just an email sent from a user to another, that is not real-time, and can withstand the delays of a store and forward network. Different types of traffic need to be handled differently; treating all traffic equally on the network can cause critical applications to be degraded while noncritical applications choke the network.
In this chapter, we will discuss the concepts related to providing the right quality of service to the different types of traffic...