Variation of traffic parameters in ATM networks

The authors consider the problem of change in traffic parameters of a connection in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network and have found out that the traffic parameters of a connection may change appreciably along its path. They present a simulation-based study to examine the magnitude of this phenomenon. The experiments showed that, under certain circumstances, there may be a significant variation in traffic characteristics of a connection at different nodes along its path. Resource allocation must take this variation into account to ensure that quality of service requirements of different connections can be satisfied. A way to handle the problem would be to restore the original traffic pattern on the connection, either fully or partially, at each node along the path. A scheme is proposed to partially reconstruct the original traffic pattern, and its effectiveness was studied by means of simulation experiments