This paper analyses the relationships between different service level agreement (SLA) components, that is, the different types of quality metrics employed by infrastructure and service providers. We propose that the quality of network economics (QoNE) be used to evaluate the quality of a network path for a given SLA model. Our evaluation indicates the usefulness of the QoNE metric, and it provides a new mechanism for the networking community to address network design problems when incorporating new challenges, such as the Internet of Things. We show how the proposed model can be implemented in software-defined network architecture applicable to networking technologies that include the interconnection of autonomous systems.

Peer Reviewed