Performance Evaluation of Time-Critical Protocols
Swinton Grange · 1994
Distributed real-time systems based on local area networks are becoming increasingly com- mon. Communication between activities executed on different nodes open have strict timing constraints. As new proposals for time-critical protocols con- tinue to emerge, a need to provide a uniform set of pegormance criteria to enable potential users to make accurate and objective comparisons between different solutions, has become apparent. The multi- ple access protocols which have been standardised to date were primarily intended for general data traffic. The three most commonly used peflormance measures - information throughput, channel utilisa- tion, and mean transfer delay - are not sufficient to determine whether a given protocol will meet the speciJic timing requirements. In this paper we iden- tifr the issues encountered and strategies used when testing the peqormunce of time-critical protocols.