The Influence of Cumulative Switch Delay in Multiple Service Class Networks
Alan Marshall, Sakir Sezer · International Journal of Computers and Applications · 2001
Future switches and routers must not only forward packets at high-speed, but also provide support for a diverse range of traffic services and at the same time, maintain the highest possible link utilization. Effects such as shaping, connection interference, and cell clumping, which can be induced by various buffering and scheduling schemes in switches, can directly influence the quality of service (QoS) provided by the network. A network of multiple asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switches has been modelled to analyze the accumulated effects of switch delays and cell jitter. Degradation in the QoS across several switches and the relative amounts of degradation contributed by switch types, are obtained from the simulations. The results presented show that this analysis may be used to achieve better understanding of cell level QoS issues within a large network. Network and switch complexity may be reduced by exploiting information regarding the traffic mixture, switch type, and network topology. Such an approach allows architectures to be redesigned in an intelligent manner with regard to QoS issues and the functional classification of the switches within the network.