A monitoring and measurement architecture for traffic engineered IP networks.

1 Thales Research Limited, Worton Drive, Reading RG2 0SB, UK. Email: Hamid.Asgari/Richard.Egan@uk.thalesgroup.com. 2 IMEC, St. Pietersnieuwsstraat 41, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium, Email: steven.vandenberghe@intec.rug.ac.be. 3 France Telecom R & D, 42, rue des Coutures, BP 6243, 14066 Caen Cedex 04, France, Email: christian.jacquenet@francetelecom.fr. 4 Centre for Com. Systems Research (CCSR), University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, U.K, Email: p.trimintzios@eim.surrey.ac.uk. 5 Alcatel – Network Strategy Group, Francis Wellisplein 1, 2018 Antwerp Belgium, Email: danny.goderis@alcatel.be. 6 School of Elect. & Computer Eng., Aristotle Uni. of Thessaloniki, PO Box 435, 54006, Thessaloniki, Greece, Email: leonid@eng.auth.gr. 7 Dept. of Elect. Engineering & Computer Science, National Technical University of Athens, Greece, Email: mykel@telecom.ntua.gr. 8 A.T.T.S. Dept., Algosystems S.A., 4, Sardeon str., 171 21 N.Smyrni, Athens, Greece, Email: pgeorgat@algo.com.gr. 9 Dept. of Electronic & Elect. Eng., University College London, Torrington Place, London WC1E 7JE, UK, Email: D.Griffin@ee.ucl.ac.uk. Abstract With the constantly growing usage of the Internet, the need for deployment of value-added IP services has recently yielded a dramatic investigation effort in the field of IP traffic engineering. Traffic engineering can be defined as a collection of techniques that will allow service providers to use the network resources as efficiently as possible, according to the different quality levels that are associated with the range of services they provide. The monitoring activity can play an important role for assisting the operation of traffic engineered networks. This paper explains how to obtain and manage the measurement information which is required by traffic engineering algorithms in dimensioning the network, dynamic resource allocation and route management, and in-service verification of traffic and performance characteristics of value-added IP services. The paper focuses on the description of a monitoring and measurement architecture that is designed within the context of the TEQUILA project, partly funded by the European Commission within the context of IST development program.