Dependency criteria on regulated inputs for buffer overflow approximation

The estimation of resource usage in network nodes is a basic issue from the point of QoS (quality of service) provisioning. The estimation of the buffer overflow is considered in network elements represented by a service curve property. Existing results (Vojnovic, M. and Le Boudec, J.-Y., IEEE Trans. Commun., 2002; Gulya´s, A. et al., IEEE GLOBECOM, 2004), define bounds on buffer overflow for such elements, multiplexing homogeneous and heterogeneous independent regulated inputs. The requirement of independence for the inputs can be reduced by setting up new bounds for the homogeneous case, using a bounding technique which relies only on the limited independence among the inputs (Siegel, A. et al., ACM-SIAM Symp. Discrete Algms, 1993). Beside the presentation of the new bounds, it is shown that they improve existing ones in all cases, and an investigation is given about the independence properties which are required from the input flows.