What is Quality of Service (QoS)?

Quality of Service (QoS) measures the consistency with which certain standards of IP packet and data services are met. Dependable, high-quality service is a key concern of network administrators for critical applications and protocols. As applications and devices use more and more bandwidth, QoS becomes more important as a tool to guarantee a known level of application availability.

One of the key concerns in maintaining QoS is ensuring that critical or time-sensitive applications receive priority over other traffic. For instance, Voice-over-IP (VoIP) packets should receive higher priority than typical data transfers so that users do not experience dropped phrases or delays. The F5 BIG-IP L7 Rate-Shaping Module affords highly sophisticated and flexible QoS controls.

F5 products that manage QoS: BIG-IP L7 Rate-Shaping Module