The ProviderSpecific Buffer

The ProviderSpecific buffer provides applications that have special QOS needs with a mechanism that enables fine-grained tuning of required QOS parameters. The ProviderSpecific buffer is of type WSABUF as defined by Windows Sockets 2 and is a member of the QOS structure.

The standard mechanisms by which Windows 2000 QOS enables service quality provisioning fulfills QOS requirements for the majority of applications. In some situations, however, service quality parameters not available with standard QOS mechanisms may need to be implemented. The ProviderSpecific buffer interface is provided for those situations.

The ProviderSpecific buffer specifically includes a length field and a pointer to a buffer, which may contain one or more QOS objects. The format of each object is as follows:

• Each object includes a type field, which specifically identifies the object, followed by:
• A length field, which contains the length of the object inclusive of the header, followed by:
• The object data itself.

See QOS Objects for more information.