| Increasingly more mission critical applications with large variation in QoS requirements are being carried over network of very heterogeneous and dynamic networks. With ever increasing mobility of the work force and of the communication infrastructure itself, we will continue to see the growth in diversity of network domains and diversity of applications. The Global Information Grid (GIG) is a prime example of such a networking environment. Commercial networks are facing similar issues of diversity and dynamics in infrastructure and in applications. In most networking scenarios, the component network domains are owned and operated by different organizations. This paper discusses how to deliver end-to-end service with requisite Quality of Service (QoS) to such networks so that overall mission goals are maximally achieved with minimal cost while allowing autonomous operations within each component network. In particular, this paper proposes a cooperative Service Level Agreements (SLA) approach, describes related SLA processes and roles, and recommends SLA metrics to be used by User Communities (UC) and Network Service Providers (NSP). The approach is illustrated with the GIG as an example. |