A framework for end-to-end deterministic-delay service provisioning in multiservice packet networks

Abstract

The problem of providing end-to-end delay guarantees for deterministic-delay services in multiservice packet networks is addressed through a combination of dynamic resource reservation and routing. Our model is based on using rate-controlled earliest-deadline-first (RC-EDF) for providing hard bounds on end-to-end delays. With RC-EDF, a certain delay bound has to be allocated for a connection at each node in the selected path. The most commonly used resource reservation policy is uniform allocation which is based on dividing the end-to-end delay bound equally among the nodes in the selected path. This simple allocation policy could lead to nonuniform resource loading and subsequently lead to high blocking rates. Moreover, the most commonly used routing method is shortest-path first routing which is known to lead to network hotspots. We propose a set of dynamic nonuniform resource reservation policies and dynamic routing methods. One of the routing methods is the well-known widest-shortest path method and the other is a dynamic routing method that adaptively adjusts link costs and uses a similar algorithm to shortest-path routing (e.g., Dijkstra's algorithm). We show that for both uniform and nonuniform traffic loading of some example network topologies that the combination of the proposed resource reservation policies and dynamic routing can lead to significant reduction in the connection blocking ratio in all loading conditions except for excessively high loads.