User-Centric QoS Policies, or Saying What and How

Current products and emerging standards for policy-based management do not clearly distinguish the goal (the "what?") of management from the policy (the "how?") that achieves the goal. This paper defines concepts and software architecture needed for a QoS management system that distinguishes between the "what" and the "how" in policy-based management and allows a system administrator to define application-level QoS goals. The corresponding policy needed to enforce the goals is specified in advance as a set of rules or procedures and a mapping to a propositional goal description. We define the concepts, give a preliminary data model, and show an example application based on a current prototype of a QoS management system.