The trick of assigning network priority to application suites

Opinion
Apr 21, 20052 mins

* Is there a case for more granular QoS?

Recent research conducted by Webtorials indicates that over the next year roughly 60% of companies will increase their deployment of a converged WAN. That research also indicates that roughly the same percentage of companies intend to increase their deployment of techniques to enable QoS.

Recent research conducted by Webtorials indicates that over the next year roughly 60% of companies will increase their deployment of a converged WAN.  That research also indicates that roughly the same percentage of companies intend to increase their deployment of techniques to enable QoS.   

When we think of implementing QoS techniques for a converged network we typically think of giving voice traffic the highest priority and giving applications such as FTP and e-mail the lowest priority. That begs the question – what priority does everything else get? That question gets particularly interesting in the case of enterprise applications such as SAP. Given the business criticality of SAP, there is a temptation to assign a high priority to all SAP traffic. 

Where it gets tricky is that SAP is comprised of a number of modules, such as the Sales and Distribution module that is used for sales order entry. If this module is running slowly, the company’s sales organization wastes time. If the module times out, this can irritate the customer to the point where they hang up, taking their business elsewhere.

However, many SAP modules are not time sensitive. Hence, assigning stringent QoS parameters to these modules adds no business value and may increase cost and negatively impact other applications. 

We would like to hear from you. Do you think it is better to apply one level of QoS to an application suite like SAP or would you prefer to be able to drill down and apply QoS on a module-by-module basis?

Jim has a broad background in the IT industry. This includes serving as a software engineer, an engineering manager for high-speed data services for a major network service provider, a product manager for network hardware, a network manager at two Fortune 500 companies, and the principal of a consulting organization. In addition, Jim has created software tools for designing customer networks for a major network service provider and directed and performed market research at a major industry analyst firm. Jim’s current interests include both cloud networking and application and service delivery. Jim has a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Boston University.

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