Performance of a connectionless protocol over ATM

Recent studies show the existence of a demand for a connectionless broadband service. In order to cope with this demand, a connectionless protocol for the B-ISDN needs to be designed. Such a protocol should make use of ATM and the ATM Adaptation Layer. It needs to specify destination and bandwidth of connections to the ATM network without advance knowledge of the traffic that has to be transferred over these connection. A possible mechanism which can cope with this problem, the 'On-demand Connection with Delayed Release' (OCDR) mechanism, is described. Its eficient operation is based on the assumption that there exists a certain correlation between subsequently arriving CL packets. Two different arrival processes are used to evaluate the performance of the OCDR mechanism: a Poisson arrival process, and a Markov Modulated Poisson Process (MMPP) which models a bursty trafic source. Markov models of the OCDR mechanism have been constructed for both arrival processes. For the madel with Poisson arrivals, a closed form solution is presented. The model with MMPP arrivals is solved numerically.\ud Compared to a 'Permanent Connection' mechanism significant bandwidth reductions can be obtained provided that the offered trafic has a bursty nature. Furthermore, the OCDR mechanism has the advantageous property that the obtained average node delay is not strongly related to the intensity and burstiness of the offered trafic

Design and evaluation of a connection management mechanism for an ATM-based connectionless service

The Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) has been developed as a connection-oriented technique for the transfer of fixed-size cells over high-speed networks. Many applications, however, require a connectionless network service. In order to provide such a technique, one can built a connectionless service on top of the connection-oriented service. In doing so, the issue of connection management comes into play. In this paper we propose a new connection management mechanism that provides for low bandwidth usage (as compared to a permanent connection) and low delays (as compared to a connection-per-packet approach). We model the new mechanism under two workload scenarios: an ordinary Poisson process and an interrupted Poisson process. We use Markovian techniques as well as matrix-geometric methods to evaluate the new connection management mechanism. From the evaluations it turns out that the proposed mechanism is superior to older approaches (which can be seen as limiting cases)

Matrix-geometric solution of infinite stochastic Petri nets

We characterize a class of stochastic Petri nets that can be solved using matrix geometric techniques. Advantages of such on approach are that very efficient mathematical technique become available for practical usage, as well as that the problem of large state spaces can be circumvented. We first characterize the class of stochastic Petri nets of interest by formally defining a number of constraints that have to be fulfilled. We then discuss the matrix geometric solution technique that can be employed and present some boundary conditions on tool support. We illustrate the practical usage of the class of stochastic Petri nets with two examples: a queueing system with delayed service and a model of connection management in ATM network

Quality of service over ATM networks

PhDAbstract not availabl

Improved learning automata applied to routing in multi-service networks

Multi-service communications networks are generally designed, provisioned and configured, based on source-destination user demands expected to occur over a recurring time period. However due to network users' actions being non-deterministic, actual user demands will vary from those expected, potentially causing some network resources to be under- provisioned, with others possibly over-provisioned. As actual user demands vary over the recurring time period from those expected, so the status of the various shared network resources may also vary. This high degree of uncertainty necessitates using adaptive resource allocation mechanisms to share the finite network resources more efficiently so that more of actual user demands may be accommodated onto the network. The overhead for these adaptive resource allocation mechanisms must be low in order to scale for use in large networks carrying many source-destination user demands. This thesis examines the use of stochastic learning automata for the adaptive routing problem (these being adaptive, distributed and simple in implementation and operation) and seeks to improve their weakness of slow convergence whilst maintaining their strength of subsequent near optimal performance. Firstly, current reinforcement algorithms (the part causing the automaton to learn) are examined for applicability, and contrary to the literature the discretised schemes are found in general to be unsuitable. Two algorithms are chosen (one with fast convergence, the other with good subsequent performance) and are improved through automatically adapting the learning rates and automatically switching between the two algorithms. Both novel methods use local entropy of action probabilities for determining convergence state. However when the convergence speed and blocking probability is compared to a bandwidth-based dynamic link-state shortest-path algorithm, the latter is found to be superior. A novel re-application of learning automata to the routing problem is therefore proposed: using link utilisation levels instead of call acceptance or packet delay. Learning automata now return a lower blocking probability than the dynamic shortest-path based scheme under realistic loading levels, but still suffer from a significant number of convergence iterations. Therefore the final improvement is to combine both learning automata and shortest-path concepts to form a hybrid algorithm. The resulting blocking probability of this novel routing algorithm is superior to either algorithm, even when using trend user demands

Dynamic bandwidth allocation in multi-class IP networks using utility functions.

PhDAbstact not availableFujitsu Telecommunications Europe Lt

Some aspects of traffic control and performance evaluation of ATM networks

The emerging high-speed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks are expected to integrate through statistical multiplexing large numbers of traffic sources having a broad range of statistical characteristics and different Quality of Service (QOS) requirements. To achieve high utilisation of network resources while maintaining the QOS, efficient traffic management strategies have to be developed. This thesis considers the problem of traffic control for ATM networks. The thesis studies the application of neural networks to various ATM traffic control issues such as feedback congestion control, traffic characterization, bandwidth estimation, and Call Admission Control (CAC). A novel adaptive congestion control approach based on a neural network that uses reinforcement learning is developed. It is shown that the neural controller is very effective in providing general QOS control. A Finite Impulse Response (FIR) neural network is proposed to adaptively predict the traffic arrival process by learning the relationship between the past and future traffic variations. On the basis of this prediction, a feedback flow control scheme at input access nodes of the network is presented. Simulation results demonstrate significant performance improvement over conventional control mechanisms. In addition, an accurate yet computationally efficient approach to effective bandwidth estimation for multiplexed connections is investigated. In this method, a feed forward neural network is employed to model the nonlinear relationship between the effective bandwidth and the traffic situations and a QOS measure. Applications of this approach to admission control, bandwidth allocation and dynamic routing are also discussed. A detailed investigation has indicated that CAC schemes based on effective bandwidth approximation can be very conservative and prevent optimal use of network resources. A modified effective bandwidth CAC approach is therefore proposed to overcome the drawback of conventional methods. Considering statistical multiplexing between traffic sources, we directly calculate the effective bandwidth of the aggregate traffic which is modelled by a two-state Markov modulated Poisson process via matching four important statistics. We use the theory of large deviations to provide a unified description of effective bandwidths for various traffic sources and the associated ATM multiplexer queueing performance approximations, illustrating their strengths and limitations. In addition, a more accurate estimation method for ATM QOS parameters based on the Bahadur-Rao theorem is proposed, which is a refinement of the original effective bandwidth approximation and can lead to higher link utilisation

Quality of Service Controlled Multimedia Transport Protocol

PhDThis research looks at the design of an open transport protocol that supports a range of services including multimedia over low data-rate networks. Low data-rate multimedia applications require a system that provides quality of service (QoS) assurance and flexibility. One promising field is the area of content-based coding. Content-based systems use an array of protocols to select the optimum set of coding algorithms. A content-based transport protocol integrates a content-based application to a transmission network. General transport protocols form a bottleneck in low data-rate multimedia communicationbsy limiting throughpuot r by not maintainingt iming requirementsT. his work presents an original model of a transport protocol that eliminates the bottleneck by introducing a flexible yet efficient algorithm that uses an open approach to flexibility and holistic architectureto promoteQ oS.T he flexibility andt ransparenccyo mesi n the form of a fixed syntaxt hat providesa seto f transportp rotocols emanticsT. he mediaQ oSi s maintained by defining a generic descriptor. Overall, the structure of the protocol is based on a single adaptablea lgorithm that supportsa pplication independencen, etwork independencea nd quality of service. The transportp rotocol was evaluatedth rougha set of assessmentos:f f-line; off-line for a specific application; and on-line for a specific application. Application contexts used MPEG-4 test material where the on-line assessmenuts eda modified MPEG-4 pl; yer. The performanceo f the QoSc ontrolledt ransportp rotocoli s often bettert hano thers chemews hen appropriateQ oS controlledm anagemenatl gorithmsa re selectedT. his is shownf irst for an off-line assessmenwt here the performancei s compared between the QoS controlled multiplexer,a n emulatedM PEG-4F lexMux multiplexers chemea, ndt he targetr equirements. The performanceis also shownt o be better in a real environmentw hen the QoS controlled multiplexeri s comparedw ith the real MPEG-4F lexMux scheme