A customer is discussing QoS requirements with a network consultant.

The requirement for end-to-end path verification identifies the Integrated Services model with RSVP. IntServ uses per-flow resource reservation, and RSVP signals the path between sender and receiver so devices along that path can admit or reject the requested service based on available resources. This makes IntServ appropriate when the design requires explicit end-to-end path validation and reservation for application flows. DiffServ works differently. In a DiffServ design, traffic is marked, normally with DSCP or CoS at the edge, and each hop applies a configured per-hop behavior. DiffServ is scalable and common in enterprise WAN and campus QoS designs, but it does not perform per-flow signaling or verify that every device in the path can reserve the requested resources. Marking traffic at the access layer is an important QoS design practice, but marking alone is not path verification. Therefore, when the customer explicitly requires end-to-end path verification for business-critical traffic, Cisco QoS architecture points to IntServ with RSVP rather than a pure DiffServ marking model.