Dynamic renegotiation of UPC parameters for arbitrary traffic sources in ATM networks

In networks based on the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), traffic sources are subjected to a usage parameter control (UPC) function which employs a deterministic algorithm to control or shape the emitted cell stream. The UPC parameters constitute a traffic descriptor which is part of a traffic contract that is negotiated with the network provider at the connection set-up time. The network makes connection admission control (CAC) decisions based on the negotiated UPC-based traffic descriptor. However the source traffic characteristics may change dramatically on a slow time-scale making the initially negotiated UPC descriptor inappropriate for the entire traffic stream. Allowing the source to dynamically renegotiate UPC parameters over time is a viable means of accommodating sources with slow time-scale variations. This paper develops a methodology for estimating and dynamically renegotiating UPC parameters for an arbitrary source in an ATM network environment. The methodology makes no specific modeling assumptions on the user cell stream, is robust for a wide class of traffic streams, and permits trade-offs to be made in the choice of the UPC parameters according to the constraints imposed by the source