An efficient ATM network switch scheduling

The problem of allocating network resources to application sessions backlogged at an individual switch has a great impact on the end-to-end delay and throughput guarantees offered by the network. There exists a class of algorithms based on weighted fair queueing (WFQ) for scheduling packets which are work-conserving and they guarantee fairness to the backlogged sessions. These algorithms also apply to ATM networks with a packet equal to a single cell or an ATM block (of fixed size). Bursts are groups of varying numbers of cells. We generalize WFQ to schedule bursts. Our motivation is to derive an adaptive algorithm which generalizes the (fixed size) packet level to a varying size packet level. The new algorithm enhances the performance of the switch service for many important applications. The proposed scheme maintains the work-conserving property, and also provides throughput and fairness guarantees. The worst-case delay bound is also given. We use simulation to study the performance characteristics of our algorithm. Our results demonstrate the efficiency of the new algorithm.