Performance evaluation of shared-buffer ATM switches under self-similar traffic

Self-similar (or fractal) is a relatively new concept in traffic modeling that needs to be taken into account in the design and performance evaluation of communication networks. Many studies indicate that self-similar traffic exhibits features such as long-range-dependence and heavy-tailed distributions which are not found in current traffic assumptions. Thus previous results that draw on those assumptions may need to be revised. We investigate the performance of shared-buffer ATM switches with and without pushout (as a buffer control scheme called HSPO) under self-similar traffic input using simulation. Our results confirm that (i) HSPO still shows improvement in performance under self-similar traffic, and (ii) the long-range-dependence in self-similar traffic is not a major influence in cell-switching whereas the way successive cells address the outputs plays a significant role