Mechanical Verification of an Ideal Incremental ABR Conformance Algorithm

Abstract

The Available Bit Rate protocol (ABR) for ATM networks is well adapted to data traffic by providing minimum rate guarantees and low cell loss to the ABR source end system. An ABR conformance algorithm for controlling the source rates through an interface has been defined by ATM Forum, and a more efficient version of it has been designed by Rabadan and Klay. We present in this work the first complete mechanical verification of the equivalence between these two algorithms. The proof is involved and has been supported by the PVS theorem prover. It has required many lemmas, case analysis, and induction reasoning for the manipulation of unbounded scheduling lists. Some ABR conformance protocols have been verified in previous works. However, these protocols are approximations of the one we consider here. In particular, the algorithms assume a bound on the number of rates to be scheduled.