The Open Group Launches Quality of Service (QoS) Task Force

Established to Focus on End-to-End Quality of Service by Linking Enterprise QoS with Network QoS

Menlo Park, CA – 19 March 2001 - The Open Group today launched the Quality of Service Task Force.  The QoS Task Force’s vision is to facilitate the delivery of enterprise-wide, network based, end-to-end Quality of Service.

Quality of Service affects every server, client, network, and application in every sector of the IT industry.  QoS is end-to-end delivery of information (data, voice, video, etc.) in real-time, reliably, consistently, and securely, not only across the Internet, but across the enterprise as well. It is a means of providing mission critical load-balancing and failsafe redundancy in the enterprise and accessibility to network resources and bandwidth, all at required levels of Quality of Service.

"Quality of Service is all about service level assurances required by the customer," said Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group. "This is essential in today's networked world. The Open Group, as the global certification authority for UNIX® systems and WAP (Wireless Access Protocol) phones, will be able to bring its' significant interoperability testing & certification experience to bear in the Quality of Service space."

The Quality of Service Task Force’s Founding Members include:

Allot Communications, Inc., Aurema, Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard, Inc., DISA, MEGAXESS, The MITRE Corporation, NeTraverse, Inc., NetReality, Predictive Systems AG, Quarry Technologies, System/Technology Development Corporation (S/TDC), Sitara Networks, Teknowledge

The Quality of Service Task Force has already achieved its first goal: to increase collaboration between commercial organizations, R&D groups, government organizations, universities, and other consortia. This cooperation will help vendors and service providers to deliver interoperable solutions, service level assurances, legacy application compatibility, and investment protection by using existing and newly developed standards.

The initial program of work for the QoS Working Groups is:

• Technology Working Group:
  • End-to-End Requirement Measurements, Controls and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs)
  • Liaison with other Consortia to support current QoS networking standards
  • Development of QoS policies
  • Identifying areas for QoS standardization
  • Addressing QoS transitions across Network, Enterprise, and Service Provider  Boundaries
• Policy Working Group:
  • QoS taxonomy for End-to-End Quality of Service components and constituents
  • End-to-End (Enterprise-Networks-Services) Service Level Agreements
  • Identifying Requirements, Measurements, and Dynamic Controls that account           for Customer-to-Vendor and Vendor-to-Vendor Service Level Agreements
• Business Working Group:
  • Business issues and policies that block or restrict End-to-End QoS solutions
  • Increasing industry awareness of open and interoperable QoS standards, policies, solutions
  • QoS testing and certification requirements

The members of the Task Force will direct the final program of work as it evolves.

For further information about The Quality of Service Task Force, please visit http://www.opengroup.org/qos/

For information about Working Groups and Membership, please contact Sally Long

About The Open Group

The Open Group, a vendor and technology-neutral consortium, is committed to delivering greater business efficiency by bringing together buyers and suppliers of information technology to lower the time, cost and risks associated with integrating new technology across the enterprise. The Open Group's mission is to offer all organizations concerned with open information infrastructures a forum where they can share knowledge, integrate open initiatives, and certify approved products and processes in a manner in which they continue to trust our impartiality. More information on our organization can be found at http://www.opengroup.org

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Quotes from the Steering Committee and Founding Members of the Quality of Service Task Force:

“Allot is pleased to join the new Quality of Service Task Force. As a vendor providing Policy-based QoS and SLA management solutions, we see the work of the task force research, definitions and standardization research as extremely important to the evolution of this important area of networking,” said Eric Rosser, President of Allot Communication.

 "Aurema has devoted over 10 years of research into Active Resource Management Technologies in an effort to help users achieve quality of service objectives. The charter membership in the Quality of Service Task Force is our commitment to support a collaborative effort to further improve the interoperability of existing and future QoS solutions," said Kristoph Cichocki-Romanov, Global Product Manager, Aurema

Compaq Computer Corp.

“Continuing its history of supporting industry standards and The Open Group, Compaq is pleased to be a founding member of the Quality of Service Task Force,” said Kent Ferson, Vice President of the UNIX Systems Business Unit, Compaq Computer Corporation.

Hewlett-Packard, Inc.

"End-to-end Quality of Service to ensure optimal end-user online experiences is a necessity to be successful in e-business today," said Patty Azzarello, Vice President and General Manager of HP Openview. "HP's focus on the total customer experience, backed by Openview  software products and services, is completely aligned with the Open Group's QoS taskforce and the collaborative benefits it will bring to both e-businesses and end users."

MEGAXESS

"MEGAXESS provides solutions that support end users with a faster, reliable information transport with a differentiated services or QoS assurance for multi-service applications. It is important for MEGAXESS to define solutions that encompass these ingredients in an integrated fashion, as part of end-to-end Quality of Service assurance to applications," said Dhadesugoor R. Vaman, Ph.D., Chairman & CEO of MEGAXESS

The MITRE Corporation

“QoS capability is important for mission-critical information systems.  The Open Group QoS Task Force will provide the needed synergy to integrate the considerable QoS technology that has already been developed.  It provides a useful forum for technology providers and users to define workable QoS solutions,” said Paul Denning, Lead Systems Engineer, The MITRE Corporation.

NeTraverse, Inc.

“NeTraverse is proud to be a charter member of the Quality of Service Task Force in The Open Group. This initiative is critical to the strategic objectives of NeTraverse in pursuing leadership in the delivery and market development of Virtual Desktop Computing. Enterprises must rely on a standard mature process in the industry to enable the infrastructure necessary for this new era of enterprise computing.”-  Mark Warring, Chief Architect, NeTraverse  

NetReality

"NetReality was founded with one purpose: assuring quality of service and guaranteed delivery times for business-critical applications traversing the network," says Kit Waugh, VP of Marketing and Business Development of NetReality, premier provider of application switching technology. "We call this Network Service Assurance. Through The Open Group, by working together to ensure interoperability, the customer is assured that their growing QoS needs will be met with the best technological solutions: enterprise-class products and carrier-delivered services."

“Quality of Service is the major concern for the commercial Internet in the years to come, especially in combination with Mobility,” said Matthias Kraner, from Predictive Systems. “Both are core practice areas of Predictive Systems AG - Deutschland. We are looking forward to participating in the productive and synergetic environment of The Open Group.”

Quarry Technologies

"Quarry Technologies' mission is to give service providers the platform and essential tools they need to deliver high-quality, secure and predictable IP services over the Internet or any shared IP network, while enabling them to manage their SLAs.  The Open Group's QoS taskforce will be an excellent forum to address key issues in this exciting arena," said Richard Forberg, Vice President of Product Management for Quarry Technologies

Sitara Networks

"Quality of Service (QoS) has become a must have technology to run today’s operations and e-Business applications. Companies who are not utilizing QoS today are giving away a competitive advantage. This is why Sitara Networks is proud to be a Founding Member of The Open Group's QoS task force." says Mark Strangio, Vice President of Business Development at Sitara Networks.

System/Technology Development Corporation (S/TDC)

“Increasingly, both commercial and military systems are going to depend on multiple, shared, communications and distributed computing services to support the end to end Quality of Service (QoS) required by their mission critical applications. To provide the end-to-end performance and dependability that those applications require, evolving QoS architectures will have to develop effective means for specifying, monitoring and controlling every critical link in those service chains,” said Dr. Arthur S. Robinson, President, System/Technology Development Corporation (S/TDC)

Teknowledge

"As the Internet and e-commerce become more important, quality of service and innovative features will be the distinguishing factors in customer interest and loyalty.  Teknowledge's work in leading edge QoS technologies give it the experience base needed to provide forward looking solutions to the Open Group's QoS Task Force and our customers." says Lou Coker, Project Leader, Teknowledge.

Editorial Contact:
Adam Cargill
The Open Group
+1 650 323-7992, ext 225