What is the Difference Between Integrated Services and Differentiated Services

The main difference between integrated services and differentiated services is that integrated services involve prior reservation of resources before achieving the required quality of service, while differential services mark the packets with priority and send it to the network without prior reservation. 

QoS refers to Quality of Service. It refers to a set of network technologies that allows the network to deliver the required results. Additionally, QoS helps to increase the performance of the network in terms of availability, error rate, latency and throughput. Furthermore, QoS supports prioritizing network traffic. QoS can also consider a specific router or a server, etc. Therefore, network monitoring systems are typically deployed as a part of QoS to ensure that the network is performing at the desired level. Overall, QoS provides two types of services: integrated services and differentiated services.

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Integrated Services
     -Definition, Functionality
2. What is Differentiated Services
     -Definition, Functionality
3. Difference Between Integrated Services and Differentiated Services
     -Comparison of key differences

Key Terms

Differentiated Services, Integrated Services

Difference Between Integrated Services and Differentiated Services - Comparison Summary

What is Integrated Services

Integrated services refer to an architecture that ensures the Quality of Service (QoS) on a network. Moreover, these services allow the receiver to watch and listen to video and sound without any interruption. Each router in the network implements integrated services. Furthermore, every application requires some kind of guarantee to make an individual reservation.

Difference Between Integrated Services and Differentiated Services

Furthermore, it is possible to implement the integrated service structure through signalling protocol and admission control routine, classifier and packet scheduler. Moreover, these services require an explicit signalling mechanism to convey information to routers so that they can provide the requested resources.

What is Differentiated Services

Differentiated services refer to a multiple service model that can satisfy many requirements. In other words, it supports multiple mission-critical applications. Moreover, these services help to minimize the burden of the network devices and also support the scaling of the network. Some major differentiated services are as follows.

Traffic conditioning – Ensures that the traffic entering the DiffServ domain.

Packet classification – Categorizes the packet within a specific group using the traffic descriptor.

Packet marking – Classify a packet based on a specific traffic descriptor.

Congestion Management – Achieve queuing and traffic scheduling.

Congestion avoidance – Monitor traffic loads to minimize congestion. In involves packet dropping.

Difference Between Integrated Services and Differentiated Services

Definition

Integrated services refer to an architecture that specifies the elements to guarantee Quality of Service (QoS) on a network while differentiated Services is a computer networking architecture that specifies a simple and scalable mechanism for classifying and managing network traffic and providing QoS on modern IP networks.

Functionality

Integrated Services involve prior reservation of resources before achieving the requisite quality of service. On the other hand, differential services mark the packets with priority and send it to the network without prior reservation. Thus, their functionality is the main difference between integrated services and differential services.

Scalability

Moreover, integrated services are not scalable, while differentiated services are scalable.

Setup

Also, another difference between integrated services and differential services is that integrated services involve per-flow setup while differential services involve long term setup.

Service scope

Furthermore, integrated services involve end to end service scope, whereas differentiated services involve domain service scope.

Conclusion

In brief, integrated and differentiated are two services of QoS. The main difference between integrated services and differentiated services is that integrated services involve prior reservation of resources before achieving the required Quality of Service while differential services mark the packets with priority and send it to the network and do not require prior reservation. 

References:

1.Technical Advisor at Iraqi Government Follow. “IntServ & DiffServ.” LinkedIn SlideShare, 7 Dec. 2013, Available here.
2.“Integrated Services.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 July 2019, Available here.
3.“Differentiated Services.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 May 2019, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1.”A diagram detailing local and remote network addresses” By Milesjpool, – Own work (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia

About the Author: Lakna

Lakna, a graduate in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, is a Molecular Biologist and has a broad and keen interest in the discovery of nature related things. She has a keen interest in writing articles regarding science.

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