What is Quality of Service (QoS)?

Quality of Service (QoS) describes the system of technologies involved in optimizing the efficiency of a network by organizing and managing its data traffic. Because networks are limited in the amount of data that can flow through each point within them, it becomes important to sort through this data and ensure that the business-critical, high priority traffic is being given priority. QoS technologies are capable of performing this prioritization as well as managing the bandwidth involved in the function of each application.

Why does QoS matter?

Without QoS, network performance is much less reliable. Because the network data is disorganized, bottlenecks and performance issues are much more likely, leading to poor network performance. In some cases, the network may even shut down when faced with an overwhelming flow of data. This negatively affects business function, customer satisfaction, and thus customer retention.

How does QoS work?

Every network has a limit to how much data it can transport in a specified amount of time. That is why it is important to be able to differentiate between higher priority, business-critical data and lower priority data. After all, a video conference with a potential client cannot afford to be delayed while an internal email may.

QoS organizes data traffic by identifying data types. A network administrator adjusts the system to prioritize certain data types over others tailoring to your enterprise’s specific needs. The system marks the traffic and differentiates it on that basis as it moves through the network.

What are the benefits of QoS?

The overall goal of QoS is to optimize network speed and efficiency. QoS reduces network issues such as packet loss, latency, and jitter as many of these issues are related to a bottleneck, or a clog in the data’s flow. In summary, the quality of an enterprise’s QoS has a profound impact on its network performance.

What are the applications of QoS?

Enterprises that benefit the most from QoS are enterprises whose business function involve high usage of audio and video content. This is because this type of traffic is highly sensitive to network issues. Network issues deteriorate the user experience at much more noticeable rates while watching a video than while sending an email, for example.

As more and more businesses adopt work-from-home models, audio and video content has become vital to businesses of diverse industries. The reliance on virtual collaboration tools has made the usage audio and video content more prevalent in the day-to-day life of the average working professional.

How does QoS help organizations?

First, QoS helps organizations by improving their ability to function. When data is transported through the network efficiently and securely, the user experience is improved. This correlates to a better user experience, which in the long term will boost customer relations.

Second, QoS cuts down on the costs related to network expansion. As your enterprise grows and network demand grows in parallel, implementing QoS can be a more cost-effective solution than making drastic changes to your network architecture. In other words, optimizing the efficiency within an existing network architecture means that you do not necessarily need to expand the infrastructure to handle higher levels of traffic.

How Apcela Used QoS to Boost Language Line ’s Communication Quality

Language Line is a global leader in innovative language access services providing onsite and on-demand, video, phone, and onsite interpretation, translation, and localization. Language Line serves a diverse portfolio of clients ranging from law enforcement agencies, healthcare organizations, schools to legal courts and businesses.

Prior to working with Apcela, Language Line experienced insufficient communication quality, with voice and video quality issues impending both call center-based agents and home agents, impacting a core function of the business.

Apcela transitioned Language Line to a hybrid cloud architecture model which incorporated QoS and facilitated the move towards VoIP/Video Applications. Working with Apcela allowed Language Line to eliminate these issues and enabled 10x capacity, all while saving $6M annually.

How Apcela can help you

Considering QoS in your cloud strategy is made easier when working with a network management expert such as Apcela. The Arcus Platform, our cloud-delivered SD-WAN solution, uses QoS traffic prioritization technology to produce low latency and impressively high network performance. From application aware routing to dynamic path selection and QoS prioritization, SD-WAN separates the data and control planes to support a truly cloud-ready network.

From application aware routing to dynamic path selection and QoS prioritization, SD-WAN separates the data and control planes to support a truly cloud-ready network

Find out more about Apcela’s Arcus Platform here.

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