Network Working Group                                          Lei Liang
Internet Draft                                                 Zhili Sun
Expiration Date: February 2005                                      UniS
                                                          September 2004




           Multiparty Communication Parameters and Metrics
                 <draft-liang-multiparty-para-00.txt>



1. Status of this Memo


   This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
   all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.


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   This memo provides information for the Internet community.  This memo
   does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.  Distribution of
   this memo is unlimited.



2. Copyright Notice


   Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2004).  All Rights Reserved.



3. Abstract
   The purpose of this memo is to highlight the new QoS requirements of
   the multiparty communication services in terms of measurement
   parameters.  It tries to derive a set of parameter metrics from the
   existing one-way metrics in IP Performance metrics IPPM [2] [3] [4]
   for the multiparty communications to present these new requirements.
   These parameter metrics are supposed to provide methods and rules for
   engineers to measure and judge the QoS of the multiparty
   communications.



4. Overview




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   The structure of the memo is as follows:
   +   We discuss the new QoS requirements of the multiparty
       communications and point  out the weakness of using one-way
       metrics in these communications.
   +   Then we will propose a set of parameters and their metrics for
       multiparty communication based on the one-way metrics defined in
       IPPM.
   +   We will further discuss the possible usage of these proposed
       metrics.



5. Motivation


   All IPPM QoS parameter metrics are defined for one-to-one
   connections.  These metrics provide very good guide in the pair
   communications.  However, further attention should be put on the
   multiparty communications, which might use multicast routing
   protocols, e.g. the IP conferencing services, online gaming, online
   stock market and etc..


   The basic consideration is that in the multiparty communication, we
   have a group of people involved in the communication rather than two.
   Simple one-way parameter metrics cannot describe the multi-connection
   situation.  One may say that no matter how many people join the
   communication, the connections can still be treated as a set of
   one-to-one connection.  However, we might not describe a multiparty
   communication by a set of one-way measurement metrics because of
   the difficulty for understanding and the lack of convenience.  For
   instance, an engineer might not describe the connections of a
   multiparty online conference in terms of one-way delay for user A and
   B, B and C, and C and A because people might be confused.  If there
   are more users in the same communication, the description might be
   very long. And he might use the one-way metrics with worst and the
   best value to give users an idea of the QoS range of the service they
   are provided.  But it's not clear enough and might not be accurate in
   a large multiparty communication scenario.  The new suggestion is to
   use the one-way parameters in a more sophisticated way after
   reasonable mathematic deriving, i.e. mean, variation etc.  The new
   metrics will be more efficient and accurate to express the connection
   situation among a group of users.


   From the QoS point of view, the multiparty communication services not
   only require the absolute QoS support but also the relative QoS.  The
   relative QoS means the difference between absolute QoS of all users.
   Directly using the one-way metrics cannot present the relative QoS
   situation.  However, if we use the variations of all users one-way
   parameters, we can have new metrics to measure the difference of the
   absolute QoS and hence provide the threshold value of relative QoS
   that a multiparty service might demand.  A very good example of the





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   high relative QoS requirement is the online gaming.  A very light
   worse delay will result in failure in the game.  We have to use the
   new metrics to define exactly how small the relative delay the online
   gaming requires.  There are many other services, e.g. online biding,
   online stock market, etc., need a rule to judge the relative QoS
   requirement.  Therefore, we can see the importance of new metrics to
   feed this need.  Two groups of parameter are proposed in this stage.



6. Parameters and Metrics for Multiparty Communication


   To conveniently define new metrics, we call all of the users in the
   same multiparty communication a user group.  This user group should
   not be mixed with the multicast user group conception.  Group
   members could use either pure unicast or multicast to communicate or
   mixed, i.e. some of the users in the group could use unicast while
   others use multicast.


   When talking about a new metrics we always have an observation
   point that is one of the users in the group.  We classify the new
   metrics into two groups based on the fact that one user could be
   either a source or a receiver.  Therefore, one group metrics will
   describe the QoS going out from the group to one particular user and
   another group describe the QoS coming into the group.  We name them
   as one-to-group parameter metrics and group-to-one parameter metrics.
   In the document,both of two group parameters are called multiparty
   communication parameters.


   These new proposed metrics are established on the base of the one-way
   metrics defined in the corresponding RFCs in the IPPM working group.
   And no modification should be added to those one-way metrics in any
   aspects.  This memo only describes the basic aspect of the proposed
   metrics.  Any aspect that is not mentioned in this memo can be
   found in the corresponding one-way metric RFCs.



6.1 One-to-group Parameters and Metrics


   One-to-group parameters are defined to measure the QoS in the view of
   a group user.  Two subset parameters are introduced:


   1. One-to-group (algorithm) mean
      a. One-to-group mean delay
      b. One-to-group mean jitter
      c. One-to-group mean packet lost rate


   2. One-to-group variation
      a. One-to-group delay variation
      b. One-to-group jitter variation
      c. One-to-group packet loss rate variation




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   The one-to-group parameters are measured based on only one source in
   a multiparty communication group.  Whenever we say one-to-group
   parameter, we should associate it with a source.  The Figure 1 shows
   this concept.


                                +---------+
                                | User B  |
                                +---------+
                                     ^
                                     |
                                 IP Network
                                     |
       +--------+              +---------+                 +--------+
       | User C |<-IP Network--| User D  |--Satellit link->| User A |
       +--------+              +---------+                 +--------+
                                     |
                                     |
                                    LAN
                                     |
                                     v
                                +---------+
                                | User E  |
                                +---------+
         Figure 1 One-to-group measurement scenario example


   In Figure 1, user A, B, C, D and E belong to the same multiparty
   communication group.  User D is the only active source in the
   group when measuring the one-to-group parameters.  User
   B and C are connected with user D through terrestrial IP network,
   user E are in the same LAN with user D.  User A are connected with
   user D using a satellite network. The one-to-group parameters
   measured in this scenario should be associated with user D.



6.1.1 One-to-group (Arithmetic) Mean


   One-to-group mean parameters are trying to measure the overall
   QoS for a multiparty communication group.  The definition of the
   One-to-group mean is the mean of a one-way parameter, such as
   one-way delay, one-way jitter and packet loss rate, measured
   simultaneously on all of the group members except of the active
   source.  The word "simultaneously" implies the one-way parameter
   should be measured based on the same sample interval at each user.
   The One-to-group mean parameter can be calculated as:


       P_ogm_para = SUM (Pi)/ N  ( i = 1, 2, 3, ... N)  (Equation 1)


   where P_ogm_para is the One-to-group mean parameter, Pi is the
   corresponding one-way parameter.  N is the number of the users
   except the active user in the group during the sampling
   interval.


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   "para" means the one-way parameter's name such as
   delay, jitter and packet loss rate.


6.1.1.1 Metric Name:


   Type-P-One-to-group-Mean-Parameter


   The "Parameter" could be any one of the one-way parameter defined
   in IPPM including delay, jitter and packet loss rate.



6.1.1.2 Metric Parameters:


   +   Src, the IP address of a source


   +   Grp, the multicast group address is multicast or empty for
       non-multicast


   +   M, a derived value corresponding to one-way parameter



6.1.1.3 Metric Units:


   The value of a Type-P-One-to-group-Mean-Parameter is depends on
   what one-way parameter is used. It should be the same
   corresponding to the one-way metrics defined in IPPM.



6.1.1.4 Methodologies:


   As the metric is derived from the corresponding one-way metric,
   the methodology to obtain those one-way parameters can be refer to
   the corresponding RFCs.  We only discuss the methodology to derive
   One-to-group mean metric from one-way parameter without consideration
   of details on synchronization, test packetizing, time and etc..


   1. Simultaneously measure the interested one-way parameters, one-way
      delay, one-way jitter or packet loss, on all of the receivers in
      a multiparty communication group when there is only one source
      active.


   2. Calculate the mean of one-way metric value using equation 1 to
      obtain the One-to-group mean metric for this source.  The
      question of when to calculate the One-to-group mean metric will
      be discussed in 6.1.1.5.


   3. Change the active source and repeat the step 1 and 2 until all
      of the group members have been active as sources.





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6.1.1.5 Discussion:


   In the second step of methodology part, we have to decide when to
   do the One-to-group mean metric calculation.  Basically, there are
   three ways to do so.  The first way is to do the calculation based
   on each packet arrival.  The active source sends packet one by one
   with sequence number in the packet headers so that all receiver
   could identify each packet.  The One-to-group mean calculation is
   executed for each packet received by all receivers.  The resulted
   metric is similar to the singleton metrics defined for one-way
   parameters corresponding to every packet received by all users.  It
   will provide the most accurate record of the group mean during a
   sampling interval with the heaviest calculation overhead.


   The second way to calculate the One-to-group mean is to use the
   mean of one-way parameter rather than the parameter itself.  The
   calculation could be scheduled to be executed periodically.  For
   instance, it can be triggered for every T seconds.  During the T
   seconds, all one-way parameters measured have to be recorded at
   each receiver.  At each T second, the mean of the recorded
   parameter will be calculated first at each receiver and used as in
   equation 1 to calculate the One-to-group mean metric value.  This
   way can reduce the heavy calculation overhead required by the first
   one.  However, it would provide less detailed information and need
   more storage space to record one-way parameters for more than one
   packet.


   The third way to calculate the One-to-group mean metric is to mix
   the previous two ways together.  We periodically calculate the
   One-to-group mean parameter using directly the corresponding
   one-way parameter metric value rather than using its mean.  For
   instance, the calculation can be prearranged to be triggered for
   every T seconds.  The receivers don't need to record the one-way
   metric value for all of the packets received during each T seconds.
   we would calculate the One-to-group mean metric value at each T
   second using the corresponding one-way parameter of the latest
   received packet.  Therefore, the One-to-group mean metrics of all
   receivers calculated at the same time would not be for the same
   packet.  However, that would not affect engineers to use these
   metrics because they can still present the network situation at
   each T second without regarding to packets.  Hence, the sequence
   number seems not necessary for One-to-group mean delay and jitter
   metrics.  However, it still has to been added to the test packets
   to notify the packet loss.  By calculating the One-to-group mean
   metrics in this way, we can overcome the requirement of big
   storage space on each receiver and the calculation overhead.

   One point has to be mentioned here is the calculation of the
   One-to-group mean packet loss rate.  Because the packet loss rate
   itself is a statistic parameter for a certain measurement interval,



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   we have to use the second way to calculate the One-to-group mean
   packet loss rate.


   Clearly, the One-to-group mean calculation period T is a very
   important factor in the implementation of the measurement.  If it
   is too small, we will not save any calculation overhead.  If it is
   too big, we might loss most of the network situation information.
   And it might be different for various applications as well.
   However, how to find a proper T is outside the scope of this
   document.  {Comment: We plan to document elsewhere our own work in
   describing such more detailed implementation techniques and we
   encourage others to as well.}



6.1.2 One-to-group Variation


   One-to-group variation metrics are trying to measure how the QoS
   varies among all of the users in a multiparty communication group
   relative to one source.  The word "variation" in this document is
   the population standard deviation.  The definition of the
   One-to-group variation is the population standard deviation of a
   one-way parameter, such as one-way delay, one-way jitter and packet
   loss rate, measured simultaneously at all of the group members
   except of the active source.  Therefore, we can have One-to-group
   delay variation, One-to-group jitter variation and One-to-group
   packet loss rate variation.  The word "simultaneously" implies the
   one-way parameter should be measured based on the same sample
   interval at each user.  Considering the case shown in Figure 1 as
   an example, when D is active, we simultaneously monitor a set of
   packets from P1 to Pn on all of the rest 4 users respectively.
   Then, the interested one-way parameter of these packets is
   calculated for each of user.  The corresponding One-to-group mean
   metric could be calculated based on the one-way parameter.
   Finally, we calculate the variation of these 4 values of the
   one-way parameter measured on 4 receivers as the One-to-group
   variation parameter for this scenario.  The One-to-group variation
   parameter can be denoted by P_ogv_para, where the symbol "para"
   means the one-way parameter's name such as delay, jitter and
   packet loss rate, and calculation should be:


      P_ogv_para = ((SUM((Pi-P_ogm_para)^2))/N)^(1/2)
                   (i = 1, 2, 3,...N)                (Equation 2)


   where Pi is the one-way parameter value (delay, jitter and packet
   loss rate) and P_ogm_para is the corresponding One-to-group mean
   parameter value.  N is the number of the receivers.



6.1.2.1 Metric Name:





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   Type-P-One-to-group-Variation-Parameter


   The "Parameter" could be any one of the one-way parameter defined
   in IPPM including delay, jitter and packet loss rate.



6.1.2.2 Metric Parameters:


   +   Src, the IP address of a source


   +   Grp, the multicast group address is multicast or empty for
       non-multicast


   +   V, a derived value corresponding to one-way parameter



6.1.2.3 Metric Units:


   The value of a Type-P-One-to-group-Variation-Parameter is depends
   on what one-way parameter is used.  It should be the same
   corresponding to the one-way metrics defined in IPPM.



6.1.2.4 Methodologies:


   As the One-to-group variation parameter metric has to be derived
   on the base of the group mean metric, we have to calculate the
   One-to-group mean metric first.  So the methodology become simple
   inheriting from the one defined for the One-to-group mean metric.


   1. Find out the One-to-group mean parameters


   2. Calculate the One-to-group variation parameters using the
      equation 2.


   3. Repeat the step 1 and 2 for all users in the same multiparty
      communication group.



6.1.2.5 Discussion:


   As the One-to-group variation parameters must be derived based on
   the One-to-group mean parameter, its calculation must be
   corresponding to the one of the One-to-group mean parameter
   described in section 4.1.1.5.  I.e., for each One-to-group mean
   parameter calculation, we can have the corresponding One-to-group
   variation parameter calculation.



6.2 Group-to-one Parameter Metrics




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   Group-to-one parameters are defined to measure the QoS in the view
   of one multiparty communication user with respect to the fact that
   this user is receiving from more than one source in the group.
   Similar to the one-to-group parameters, two subset parameters are
   proposed:


   1. Group-to-one member (arithmetic) mean
      a. Group-to-one mean delay
      b. Group-to-one mean jitter
      c. Group-to-one mean packet loss rate


   2. Group-to-one variation
      a. Group-to-one delay variation
      b. Group-to-one jitter variation
      c. Group-to-one packet loss rate variation


   The group-to-one parameters are measured based on only one receiver
   in a multiparty communication group.  Whenever we say group-to-one
   parameter, we should associate it with the receiver.  The Figure 2
   shows this concept.
                                +---------+
                                | User B  |
                                +---------+
                                     |
                                 IP Network
                                     |
                                     v
       +--------+              +---------+                 +--------+
       | User C |--IP Network->| User D  |<-Satellit link--| User A |
       +--------+              +---------+                 +--------+
                                     ^
                                     |
                                    LAN
                                     |
                                     |
                                +---------+
                                | User E  |
                                +---------+
                Figure 2 Group-to-one measurement scenario example


   Figure 2 shows almost the same information as Figure 1.  The
   difference is, in Figure 4, user D is the receiver who received
   data from all of the rest group members simultaneously or
   consequently.  The group-to-one parameters measured in this
   scenario should be measured and associated with user D.


   In the following sections, we will define these parameters and
   their metrics.  You will find the definitions are very similar
   to one-to-group parameters.  One might question on if we need to
   have separately definitions of one-to-group and group-to-one



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   parameters.  The answer is positive and we will discuss it after
   the definition.



6.2.1 Group-to-one (arithmetic) Mean


   Group-to-one mean parameters are trying to measure the QoS of
   a multiparty communication group received by one user.  The
   definition of the Group-to-one mean parameter of a user is the
   mean of a one-way parameter, such as one-way delay, one-way
   jitter and packet loss rate, measured on that user when it
   simultaneously receiving data from all the rest users in the
   group.  The word "simultaneously" implies the one-way parameter
   should be measured based on the same sample interval on the
   measured user.  The Group-to-one mean parameter can be calculated
   as:

         P_gom_para = SUM (Pi)/N         (i = 1,2,3,...N)   (Equation3)


   where P_gom_para is the Group-to-one mean parameter, Pi is the
   corresponding one-way parameter from each of the source to the
   measured user.  N is the number of the users except the measured
   user in the group during the sampling interval.  "para" means the
   one-way parameter's name such as delay, jitter and packet loss
   rate.



6.2.1.1 Metric Name:


   Type-P-Group-to-one-Mean-Parameter


   The "Parameter" could be any one of the one-way parameter defined
   in IPPM including delay, jitter and packet loss rate.



6.2.1.2 Metric Parameters:


   +   Dst, the IP address of a receiver


   +   Grp, the multicast group address is multicast or empty for
       non-multicast


   +   M, a derived value corresponding to one-way parameter



6.2.1.3 Metric Units:


   The value of a Type-P-Group-to-one-Variation-Parameter is depends
   on what one-way parameter is used.  It should be the same
   corresponding to the one-way metrics defined in IPPM.




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6.2.1.4 Methodologies:


   As the group-to-one mean parameter metric also derived on the base
   of the corresponding one-way parameter metric, we still only
   discuss the methodology to derive Group-to-one mean metric from
   one-way metric without consideration of details on synchronization,
   test packetizing, time and etc..


   1. Simultaneously measure the interested one-way parameters,
      one-way delay, one-way jitter or packet loss, on the measured
      user while all of the rest of users in the multiparty
      communication group sending data to it.  All the one-way
      parameter should be measured based on the source and
      destination pair.


   2. Calculate the mean of one-way metric value using equation 3 to
      obtain the Group-to-one mean metric for the measured user.  The
      question of when to calculate the group-to-one mean metric will
      be discussed in 4.2.1.5.


   3. Change the active source and repeat the step 1 and 2 until all
      of the group members have been measured.



6.2.1.5 Discussion:


   As we did to the One-to-group mean parameter, we should determine
   when to calculate the Group-to-one parameter here.  Clearly we can
   use the three ways proposed for the One-to-group mean parameter to
   calculate the Group-to-one mean parameter.  The only difference is
   the former has many measurement points and calculation has to be
   done with the information provided by all of these measurement
   points while for the later all information needed for the
   group-to-one parameter can be provided by a single measurement
   point.



6.2.2 Group-to-one Variation


   Group-to-one variation metrics are trying to measure how the QoS
   varies at one user in the multiparty communication group when the
   rest of users sending data to it.  The definition of the
   Group-to-one variation is the population standard deviation of a
   one-way parameter, such as one-way delay, one-way jitter and
   packet loss rate, measured at one user in a multiparty
   communication group while all of the rest group members sending
   data simultaneously to it.  Therefore, we can have Group-to-one
   delay variation, Group-to-one jitter variation and Group-to-one
   packet loss rate variation.  The word "simultaneously" implies




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   the one-way parameter should be measured based on the same sample
   interval at the measured user. Considering the case shown in
   Figure 2 as an example, when D is chose as the measured user, we
   simultaneously monitor a set of packets from P1 to Pn sent by each
   of the rest 4 users respectively.  Then, the interested one-way
   parameter of these packets is calculated for each pair of users,
   i.e., D and A, D and B, D and C and D and E.  The corresponding
   Group-to-one mean metric could be calculated based on the one-way
   parameter.  Finally, we calculate the variation of these 4 values
   as the Group-to-one variation parameter for this scenario.  The
   One-to-group variation parameter can be denoted by P_gov_para,
   where the symbol "para" means the one-way parameter's name such
   as delay, jitter and packet loss rate, and calculation should be:


      P_gov_para = ((SUM((Pi-P_gom_para)^2))/N)^(1/2)
                    (i = 1, 2, 3,...N)       (Equation 4)


   N is the total user number in the multiparty communication except
   the measured one and pi is the one-way parameter for each of the N
   users.



6.2.2.1 Metric Name:


   Type-P-Group-to-one-Variation-Parameter


   The "Parameter" could be any one of the one-way parameter defined
   in IPPM including delay, jitter and packet loss rate.



6.2.2.2 Metric Parameters:


   +   Dst, the IP address of a receiver


   +   Grp, the multicast group address is multicast or empty for
       non-multicast


   +   V, a derived value corresponding to one-way parameter



6.2.2.3 Metric Units:


   The value of a Type-P-Group-to-one-Variation-Parameter is depends
   on what one-way parameter is used.  It should be the same
   corresponding to the one-way metrics defined in IPPM.



6.2.2.4 Methodologies:






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   The methodology can be simply inherited from the one defined for
   the Group-to-one mean metric as:


   1. Find out the Group-to-one mean parameters


   2. Calculate the Group-to-one variation parameters using the
      equation 4


   3. Repeat the step 1 and 2 for all users in the same multiparty
      communication group



6.2.2.5 Discussion:


   As the Group-to-one variation parameters must be derived based on
   the Group-to-one mean parameter, its calculation must be
   corresponding to the one of the Group-to-one mean parameter
   described in section 4.2.1.5.  I.e., for each Group-to-one mean
   parameter calculation, we can have the corresponding Group-to-one
   variation parameter calculation.



6.3 Reasons for Two groups of similar parameters


   As we mentioned in the beginning of section 4.2, the definitions
   of One-to-group parameters and Group-to-one parameters are very
   similar.  There are reasons we should separately define them.
   Firstly it is because of the metric parameter definition.  The
   One-to-group metrics have a common parameter, Src, the IP
   address of the active source during the measurement interval.
   It must be changed to Dst parameter for the Group-to-one metrics
   to present the measured user.  It's not like the case for the
   one-way parameter measurement where the destination and the
   source are single host in the same level.  They can be exchanged
   in the measurement without any difficulty.  Therefore one metric
   is enough for measurement between one pair of hosts.  In the
   multiparty communication, the source and the destination cannot
   be exchanged because one of them presents more than one user.  We
   have to define two metrics for the measurement for two directions.
   For instance, if user A and user B communicates with each other,
   the one-way delay metric can be used for both direction traffics
   by exchanging the Src and Dst parameter [3].  However, if user C
   joins their communication, we have to user the proposed new
   metrics to measure the QoS for the multiparty communication.  The
   One-to-group mean delay metric and the One-to-group delay
   variation can show clearly the QoS received by user A and user B
   in the group relative to user C.  We cannot use the same metrics
   to measure the QoS received by C relative to both user A and user
   B by simply exchanging the Src and Grp parameter in the metric
   because of the methodology described for One-to-group parameter.




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   Secondly, we should define Group-to-one and One-to-group
   separately because of the transporting technologies used for
   multiparty communications.  There might be the coexistence of
   both unicast and multicast.  One host in a multiparty
   communication group might use unicast to receive data from
   other hosts and user multicast to send data to the others.  The
   delay of each direction would be different due to the
   difference of the transport technologies.  If we can say that
   for one-to-one communications, delays for both directions can be
   approximately the same, we might not have the same conclusion
   for the multiparty communications.  Therefore, we need two
   groups of metric to describe the network situation regarding
   the traffic direction.



7. Relative QoS and the Proposed Metrics


   There is an interesting point in the methodologies for obtaining
   the Group-to-one parameters that we have all of the rest users
   sending data simultaneously rather than let them work separately
   in order.  The same question can also be asked for the
   methodology of the One-to-group parameter.  As we discussed in
   the motivation part that the second reason we propose these new
   parameters and their metrics is that the multiparty communication
   have extra requirements on the relative QoS beside the absolute
   QoS.  These proposed metrics could be used to describe and
   measure the relative QoS, which implies that all the one-way
   parameters needed to derive the Group-to-one and One-to-group
   parameters have to be measured in the same measurement interval
   rather than separately in an order.  We cannot describe the
   relative QoS by compare the same parameter for different
   connection in different time.

   Here we have some example to show how to use the proposed metrics
   to describe and measure the relative QoS.  For instance, the
   relative delay can be measured by using the Group-to-one and
   One-to-group delay variation metric.  Group-to-one delay
   variation measures the difference of delays received by one
   user in a multiparty communication group relative to the rest
   sources.  A centralized multiparty communication where all
   clients have to communicate with the rest group members through
   a central server might require the transmission delays from all
   clients to the server satisfy a Group-to-one delay variation
   threshold to guarantee that no clients suffer much bigger delay
   than others or enjoy much smaller delay than others.  Typical
   examples are the services that need their users to compete with
   each other.  The One-to-group delay variation measures how
   different for each user to receive data from one source in a
   multiparty communication group, which is another a relative QoS
   issue.  No matte what topology the multiparty communication




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   service uses, it might need one One-to-group delay variation
   threshold to ensure that all group members can have the close
   priority to make further move to response to any source in the
   group.


   An example of the use of the proposed metrics might be the
   adaptable priority optimisation algorithm.  The basic idea is to
   dynamically change the priority for each group member according
   to the network situation to guarantee that all members in the
   group have close QoS.  In another word, the Group-to-one
   variation and One-to-group variation parameter should be kept
   under a certain threshold to satisfy the relative QoS
   requirements for various applications.  The detail of this
   adaptable priority optimisation algorithm is out of the scope
   of this document.



8. Errors


   We are not going to discuss errors caused by the measurement of
   the one-way parameters in this document because they can be found
   in the corresponding RFCs.  We have to discuss the errors
   introduced by the proposed metrics in this document.  The reason
   of these errors is the packet loss in the network.  When a packet
   never arrive its destination, its delay might be hidden from the
   result.


   When we discussed about when to calculate the proposed metrics,
   we gave three ways. The first way proved one-way parameter
   metrics corresponding to packets.  That means for each packet
   we can find one metric for it.  Then error caused by packet loss
   can then be easily sorted out before we calculate the
   Group-to-one and One-to-group parameters.


   However, for the other two ways, we either use a mean to present
   the interested one-way parameter or the last packet received by
   the measurement point during a period of time.  If there are
   any packets lost in the period of time, they will be ignored by
   the calculation of the multiparty communication parameters.  For
   instance, we do the calculation of the multiparty communication
   parameters for every T seconds.  Then for the second way, the
   mean of the one-way delay in a T second could be infinity if any
   packets lost during that T second and infinity is a valid metric
   value for the one-way delay metric.  Then our Group-to-one and
   One-to-group mean parameters and variation parameters could be
   infinity after calculation.  This infinity doesn't mean anything
   in terms of relative delay for multiparty communication.  We
   should not have the conclusion that during that T seconds, users
   in the group suffered significantly different delay.





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   For the third way where we only use the latest packet received
   during a T seconds, if all of the packets were lost during the T
   seconds, which is quite possible since T could be a very short
   time, the one-way metric value we use to calculate the multiparty
   communication parameters will be the one for the latest packet
   receiver in last T seconds.  Clearly, the result will not reflect
   any information of the network situation during this T seconds
   and therefore, it becomes an error.


   The possible calibration can be done by using more sophisticated
   way to calculate the multiparty communication parameters.  For
   instance, we can ignore all the one-way metrics with infinity
   value when we calculate the multiparty communication parameters
   for the second calculation way.  We can find out which T seconds
   suffers from the packet lost and do not calculate the multiparty
   communication parameter for it in the third way.  There might be
   other methods to calibrate the errors, which we did not discuss
   here.  As long as they can avoid leading us to the wrong
   analysis, they can be implemented in the application.


9. References


   [1] Paxson, V., Almes, G., Mahdavi, J. and M. Mathis, "Framework
       for IP Performance Metrics", RFC 2330, May 1998.


   [2] Almes, G., Kalidindi, S. and M. Zekauskas, "A One-way Packet
       Loss Metric for IPPM", RFC 2680, September 1999.


   [3] G. Almes, S. Kalidindi, and M. Zekauskas, "A One-way Delay
       Metric for IPPM", RFC 2679, September 1999.


   [4] C. Demichelis, and P. Chimento, "IP Packet Delay Variation
       Metric for IP Performance Metrics (IPPM)", RFC 3393,
       November 2002.


8. Authors' Addresses


   Lei Liang <l.liang@eim.surrey.ac.uk>


   Zhili Sun <z.sun@eim.surrey.ac.uk>


   Expiration date: February 2005