Traffic management in broadband integrated services digital networks

Discusses traffic management for broadband networks operating under the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). The design of hybrid traffic management algorithms for the multiplexing of heterogenous classes of data over a common digital channel is of particular interest. Within the broadband integrated services digital network (B-ISDN) environment, we focus on the following traffic classes: voice, video, high-speed data and low-speed data. Each traffic category imposes different quality of service (QOS) requirements while simultaneously presenting traffic input rates which may vary dynamically. The prime issue is the deployment of hybrid multiplexing algorithms (HMAs) which satisfy both the constraints and QOSs of all traffic categories, while simultaneously attaining high channel utilization and induce low implementation overhead. A class of HMAs corresponds to a semi-dynamic capacity allocation approach, generally applicable to environments where traffic rates vary relatively slowly and their statistics are parametrically known. These semi-dynamic HMAs induce frame structures, where the capacity allocation per frame is dictated by a superimposed traffic monitoring algorithm (TMA). A key attribute of our TMA is its ability to quickly detect shifts in the rates of the traffic it monitors. The decisions induced by the TMA represent traffic characterization. For traffic management, they dictate pertinent capacity allocations per traffic class and may also be fed back to the input traffic cells to control the traffic load accordingly