Next-generation networks will be required to provide performance guarantees with respect to bandwidth, delay, and data loss to applications (e.g., real-time audio and video applications), while continuing to support the services provided by current networks (e.g., telnet, ftp, and http). Today's Internet provides best-effort service to all applications; the network provides little or no guarantees about the end-to-end performance that applications and users expect.

The commercialization of the Internet and the deployment of several business-critical applications over the Internet have exposed the inadequacy of the best-effort service model. On the other hand, this weak service model has led the development and deployment of a network core that can scale to vast number of users and hosts. But the objectives of providing rich network services while maintaining the simplicity of network design and implementation have eluded network designers. Meeting these objectives requires innovations at various layers of the network architecture. The most significant among these are changes required at the network layer, which defines the services exported by a network.

The goal of the TRAM project is to develop mchanisms and protocols that enable networks to meet the QoS requirements of a variety of applications.