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Software Engineering vocabulary · APIs, Networking and Security

QoS

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

abbreviationCommon term

In software engineering, QoS means: Short for quality of service: a set of techniques that give important traffic, such as voice and video, priority over less urgent traffic when a link is busy.

In Turkish: hizmet kalitesi, trafik önceliklendirme, QoS

How it is used

Spelled out as 'Q-O-S' or said 'kwoss'. Engineers configure QoS policies, mark and classify traffic (for example with DSCP values) and apply QoS on WAN links. QoS cannot create bandwidth; it only decides who goes first when there isn't enough.

Example sentences

  1. Without QoS, a large file upload can ruin every video call in the office.

  2. We mark voice packets so the QoS policy on the WAN router puts them first.

Common collocations

  • QoS policy
  • configure QoS
  • QoS marking
  • apply QoS
  • end-to-end QoS
  • jitterVariation in the delay of packets arriving over a network; when packets arrive at uneven intervals, voice and video calls become choppy or robotic.
  • bandwidthThe maximum amount of data a connection can carry in a given time, usually measured in megabits or gigabits per second (Mbps, Gbps).
  • congestionA situation in which more traffic is trying to cross a link or device than it can handle, so packets are queued or dropped and everything slows down.
  • latencyThe time a request or piece of data takes to travel through a system and get a response, usually measured in milliseconds.
  • packet lossA situation in which some packets sent across a network never reach their destination, usually shown as a percentage; it causes slow downloads, choppy calls and frozen video.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: APIs, Networking and Security

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