Patent ID: 7068645

Claim:
A method of providing different quality of services (QOS) to different layer-3 datagrams to be transported from a first network device to a second network device connected by a backbone, each of said first network device and said second network device operating as a layer-3 device, said method comprising: provisioning a tunnel in said first network device, said tunnel terminating at said second network device via said backbone, said tunnel being implemented to provide different QOS to different packets depending on a packet header for the corresponding packet; indicating in said first network device whether to provide different QOS to different datagrams received on a point-to-point session; receiving a layer-3 datagram on said point-to-point session in said first network device, said layer-3 datagram containing a datagram header and a datagram data; examining said datagram header in said first network device to determine a QOS to be provided to said layer-3 datagram, wherein said examining determines to provide different QOS to datagrams received on said point-to-point session based on said indicating; forming at least one packet in said first network device by encapsulating at least said datagram data with a layer-3 header, wherein said layer-3 header identifies said tunnel to said second network device, said at least one packet containing a packet header to provide said QOS determined by said examining; and sending said at least one packet to said second network device on said tunnel, whereby layer-3 datagrams received on said point-to-point session receive different QOS based on the corresponding datagram headers if said indicating indicates that different QOS are to be provided to different datagrams received on said point-to-point session.