The pseudo-self-similar traffic model: application and validation

Since the early 1990¿s, a variety of studies has shown that network traffic, both for local- and wide-area networks, has self-similar properties. This led to new approaches in network traffic modelling because most traditional traffic approaches result in the underestimation of performance measures of interest. Instead of developing completely new traffic models, a number of researchers have proposed to adapt traditional traffic modelling approaches to incorporate aspects of self-similarity. The motivation for doing so is the hope to be able to reuse techniques and tools that have been developed in the past and with which experience has been gained. One such approach for a traffic model that incorporates aspects of self-similarity is the so-called pseudo self-similar traffic model. This model is appealing, as it is easy to understand and easily embedded in Markovian performance evaluation studies. In applying this model in a number of cases, we have perceived various problems which we initially thought were particular to these specific cases. However, we recently have been able to show that these problems are fundamental to the pseudo self-similar traffic model. In this paper we review the pseudo self-similar traffic model and discuss its fundamental shortcomings. As far as we know, this is the first paper that discusses these shortcomings formally. We also report on ongoing work to overcome some of these problems

Sequential Monte Carlo simulation of collision risk in free flight air traffic

Within HYBRIDGE a novel approach in speeding up Monte Carlo simulation of rare events has been developed. In the current report this method is extended for application to simulating collisions with a stochastic dynamical model of an air traffic operational concept. Subsequently this extended Monte Carlo simulation approach is applied to a simulation model of an advanced free flight operational concept; i.e. one in which aircraft are responsible for self separation with each other. The Monte Carlo simulation results obtained for this advanced concept show that the novel method works well, and that it allows studying rare events that stayed invisible in previous Monte Carlo simulations of advanced air traffic operational concepts

Erlang analysis of cellular networks using stochastic Petri nets and user-in-the-loop extension for demand control

Abstract—Cellular networks face severe challenges due to the expected growth of application data rate demand with an increase rate of 100 % per year. Over-provisioning capacity has been the standard approach to reduce the risk of overload situations. Traditionally in telephony networks, call blocking and overload probability have been analyzed using the Erlang-B and Erlang-C formulas, which model limited capacity communication systems without or with session request buffers, respectively. While a closed-form expression exists for the blocking probability for constant load and service, a steady-state Markov chain (MC) analysis can always provide more detailed data, as long as the Markov property of the arrival and service processes hold. However, there is a significant modeling advantage by using the stochastic Petri net (SPN) paradigm to model the details of such a system. In addition, software tool support allows getting numeric analysis results quickly by solving the state probabilities in the background and without the need to run any simulation. Because of this efficiency, the equivalent SPN model of the Engset, Erlang-B and Erlang-C situation is introduced as novelty in this paper. Going beyond the original Erlang scenario, the user-in-the-loop (UIL) approach of demand shaping by closed-loop control is studied as an extension. In UIL, demand control is implemented by a dynamic usage-based tariff which motivates users to reduce or postpone the use of applications on their smart phone in times of light to severe congestion. In this paper, the effect of load on the price and demand reduction is modeled with an SPN based on the classical Erlang Markov chain structure. Numeric results are easily obtained and presented in this paper, including probability density functions (PDF) of the load situation, and a parameter analysis showing the effectiveness of UIL to reduce the overload probability. Keywords—User-in-the-loop (UIL); demand shaping; demand control; congestion; Erlang; stochastic Petri-net (SPN). I

A formalism for describing and simulating systems with interacting components.

This thesis addresses the problem of descriptive complexity presented by systems involving a high number of interacting components. It investigates the evaluation measure of performability and its application to such systems. A new description and simulation language, ICE and it's application to performability modelling is presented. ICE (Interacting ComponEnts) is based upon an earlier description language which was first proposed for defining reliability problems. ICE is declarative in style and has a limited number of keywords. The ethos in the development of the language has been to provide an intuitive formalism with a powerful descriptive space. The full syntax of the language is presented with discussion as to its philosophy. The implementation of a discrete event simulator using an ICE interface is described, with use being made of examples to illustrate the functionality of the code and the semantics of the language. Random numbers are used to provide the required stochastic behaviour within the simulator. The behaviour of an industry standard generator within the simulator and different methods of number allocation are shown. A new generator is proposed that is a development of a fast hardware shift register generator and is demonstrated to possess good statistical properties and operational speed. For the purpose of providing a rigorous description of the language and clarification of its semantics, a computational model is developed using the formalism of extended coloured Petri nets. This model also gives an indication of the language's descriptive power relative to that of a recognised and well developed technique. Some recognised temporal and structural problems of system event modelling are identified. and ICE solutions given. The growing research area of ATM communication networks is introduced and a sophisticated top down model of an ATM switch presented. This model is simulated and interesting results are given. A generic ICE framework for performability modelling is developed and demonstrated. This is considered as a positive contribution to the general field of performability research

Ad hoc network security and modeling with stochastic petri nets

Advances in wireless technology and portable computing along with demands for high user mobility have provided a major promotion toward the development of ad hoc networks. These networks feature dynamic topology, self-organization, limited bandwidth and battery power of a node. Unlike the existing commercial wireless systems and fixed infrastructure networks, they do not rely on specialized routers for path discovery and traffic routing. Security is an important issue in such networks. Typically, mobile nodes are significantly more susceptible to physical attacks than their wired counterparts. This research intends to investigate the ad hoc network routing security by proposing a performance enhanced Secure ad hoc On-demand Routing protocol (SOR). Specifically, it presents a method to embed Security Level into ad hoc on-demand routing protocols using node-disjoint multipath, and to use maximum hopcount to restrict the number of routing packets in a specific area. The proposed scheme enables the use of security as a marked factor to improve the relevance of the routes discovered by ad hoc routing protocols. It provides customizable security to the flow of routing protocol messages. In general, SOR offers an alternative way to implement security in on-demand routing protocols. Ad hoc network is too complex to allow analytical study for explicit performance expressions. This research presents a Stochastic Petri net-based approach to modeling and analysis of mobile ad hoc network. This work illustrates how this model is built as a scalable model and used to exploit the characteristics of the networks. The proposed scheme is a powerful analytical model that can be used to derive network performance much more easily than a simulation-based approach. Furthermore, the proposed model is extended to study the performance of ad hoc network security by adding multipath selection and security measurement parameters. This research gives a quantificational measurement to analyze the performance of a modified SPN model under the effect of multipath and attack of a hypothetical compromised node