Considerations for scheduling and servicing events using a calendar structure

Networks are supposed to support multiple service categories that include real-time services and best-effort services. In both types of applications, it is important to differentiate between the requirements of different streams, and allow for an appropriate distribution of resources among them. Work-conserving disciplines may be implemented with the use of queue or scheduling calendars. Since calendars have finite resolutions, theoretical emission times that determine the positions of frames within the calendar slots have to be rounded to match the boundaries of the slots. The selection of a rounding method affects the performance of a work-conserving discipline. We present an efficient calendar structure and examine several rounding methods.