Characterising the Worst Traffic Profile Passing Through an ATM-UNI

Abstract

Broadband networks (B-ISDN) based on the ATM technology are designed to support a wide variety of services characterised by heterogeneous ATM traffic descriptors and Quality of Service (QoS) parameters. According to the ATM-Forum User Network Interface Specification, an ATM connection can be characterised by four parameters, the Peak Cell Rate, the Cell Delay Variation tolerance, the Sustainable Cell Rate and the Burst tolerance. User Parameter Control and Connection Admission Control algorithms should consider all the above traffic parameters for effective network management. However, there is a large number of traffic patterns that can be characterised by the same four parameters. Supposing that no additional information is known about the traffic profiles of the incoming streams, the CAC mechanisms should consider the worst traffic profiles, so that the ATM network will be able to efficiently allocate resources and satisfy its QoS commitments.