Refined assured forwarding framework for differentiated services architecture

This paper presents a new refined assured forwarding (RAF) framework for improving the performance of DiffServ architecture where heterogeneous traffic flows share the same aggregate class. The new framework requires minimal modification to existing DiffServ routers by adding a second layer of classification of flows based on their average packet sizes and using Weighted Fair Queueing for flow scheduling. The efficiency of the new architecture in enhancing the performance of DiffServ is demonstrated by simulation results for delay, packet delivery, throughput, and packet loss, under different traffic scenarios.