Real-time communication in FDDI networks

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive study of the use of FDDI networks to support real-time communication in mission-critical systems. Due to the potentially catastrophic results of failure in such systems, it is important to avoid message loss whenever possible. We develop efficient tests to check whether message loss may occur, either due to missing deadlines or due to buffer overflow. These tests are extremely useful in the design and operation of mission-critical systems using FDDI networks. Two types of tests are developed: message-parameter-based tests, which use detailed system knowledge to determine whether loss may occur, and utilization-based tests, which only require knowledge of the overall system load. In order to examine the system performance over a wide range of network loads, we also examine the probability that a randomly chosen message set will not suffer any loss. The work reported in this paper is compatible with the FDDI and SAFENET standards, and can be applied by engineers building real-time systems using these standards.