Traffic Control in ATM: A Review, an Engineer’s Critical View & a Novel Approach
Nikolas M. Mitrou · Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks · 2005
This paper has a twofold objective. First, it aims at reviewing the basic ATM traffic control functions, as defined by the standards, addressing popular methods that are used for performance analysis of ATM multiplexing and, then, bending critically over controversial issues in this area; among these issues is the suitability of statistical models for traffic control, the effectiveness of rate-based control schemes as well as the advantages and disadvantages of using effective rates as traffic descriptors. Motivated by the results of this critical analysis, the second part of the paper is devoted to a new approach to the ATM traffic control problem. Taking into account the foreseen convergence between IP and ATM, it focuses on a burst-level modelling through the classical M/G/1 model, which essentially ignores cell-level details within bursts, including the cell rate itself, and exploits the buffering gain, assuming a large buffer_space/burst_size ratio.