RFC 1346 (rfc1346) - Page 2 of 6
Resource Allocation, Control, and Accounting for the Use of Network Resources
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1346 Resource Allocation, Control, and Accounting June 1992
Often the situation can appear worse than having to survive in a
jungle, in the sense that the strong (even if "good") seem to have
little advantage over the weak. It may seem that it is the
determined person rather than the important work that gets service.
Most people will have experienced poor service on an overloaded
network at some time. To help the end-users, it seems on the face of
it that one must help the IT Service Manager he relates to. Examples
relating to the relationship between the network manager and his
customers, IT Service Managers at institutions connecting to his
network, include the following:
(a) If the IT Service Manager finds his link to the Network Manager's
network overloaded, he may be offered a link upgrade, probably with a
cost estimate. He might prefer control mechanisms whereby he can say
that department X deserves more resources than department Y, or that
interactive terminal use takes preference over file transfers, or
that user U is more important than user V.
(b) Where an IT Service Manager is sharing a link, he will commonly
get more than his institution's share of the link, and often get very
good value-for-money compared to using a dedicated link, but he has
no guarantee that his end-users' usage won't get swamped by the use
of other (perhaps much larger) partners on the shared link. This
could be seen as wishing to have a guaranteed minimum share according
to some parameter(s).
(c) On a shared link as under (b), the Network Manager may wish to
ensure that usage of the link (which might be a high-performance
trunk line on a network or an international link for example) by any
one partner is "reasonable" in relation perhaps to his contribution
to the costs. In contrast to (b), the Network Manager is wishing to
impose a maximum value on some parameter(s). He may be happy if the
width of the IT Service Manager's access link is not greater than his
share of the shared link (assuming the measure agreed on is "width"),
but this will commonly not be the case. To be able to reach
agreement, the Network Manager and the IT Service Manager may need
options on the choice of parameters, and perhaps a choice on the
means of control, as well as being able to negotiate about values.
In circumstances where the Network Manager can exercise such controls
over his customers, the IT Service Managers may say with some feeling
and perhaps with justification, that if they are going to be
controlled can the Network Manager please provide tools whereby they
can arrange for the onward sharing of the resource they have, and
thence onwards down the hierarchy to the end-users.
Jones