The QoS services are based on ATM permanent virtual circuits, which give each tier of service being offered its own guaranteed performance levels. In that scenario, an IT manager is usually given a tool to prioritize traffic. Then the IT manager can designate what priority each traffic type will receive relative to other traffic types. With the Savvis QoS offering, by contrast, an IT manager sets priority levels for different types of applications, but the traffic for each of those applications is explicitly directed to one of four designated tiered services, each with its own service level guarantees. The four levels of service are Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.
Bronze offers best-effort delivery assurances.
Silver is a higher-quality service that offers some guarantees on latency. This service will typically be used for VPN data traffic. The Gold service offers still higher quality for transaction-processing traffic. The Platinum level is designed for applications with real-time traffic such as voice or videoconferencing. The QoS-based VPN services are available now.