Quality of service guarantees in virtual circuit switched networks

We review some recent results regarding the problem of providing deterministic quality of service guarantees in slot-based virtual circuit switched networks. The concept of a service curve is used to partially characterize the service that virtual circuit connections receive. We find that service curves provide a convenient framework for managing the allocation of performance guarantees. In particular, bounds on end-to-end performance measures can be simply obtained in terms of service curves and burstiness constraints on arriving traffic. Service curves can be allocated to the connections, and we consider scheduling algorithms that can support the allocated service curves. Such an approach provides the required degree of isolation between the connections in order to support performance guarantees, without precluding statistical multiplexing. Finally, we examine the problem of enforcing burstiness constraints in slot-based networks