Design of real-time admission control algorithms with priority support

A multimedia ATM network is shared by media channels with different performance requirements and traffic characteristics. To make efficient use of network resources, the quality of service provided to the users should be as close as possible to their requirements. A scheme with two levels of cell loss priority within each channel is proposed. Priorities are assigned and enforced by the network locally at each switch along the path of a connection. The assignment, which can be different for the same connection at two different switches, is also dynamic; it is updated every time a connection is set up or one is terminated. Algorithms used by the network to decide the fraction of cells of each stream assigned to each cell loss priority level, along with a simple mechanism to enforce the desired priority assignment and a real-time admission control algorithm, with decision time of very few milliseconds even for thousands of heterogeneous sources are presented