A WORKLOAD MODEL FOR PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF MULTIMEDIA SIGNALING SYSTEMS

The signalling system of future integrated services multimedia telecom munication networks is expected to be modular but also complex. The us er ability to define service characteristics dynamically will lead to high interaction rates expressed as considerable signalling loads for the network. Towards the objective to test signalling protocols and to recommend on network design issues of a signalling system for demandi ng services and users, this paper presents a Workload Model Tool (WMT) developed to accurately represent the signalling activity of a user o f any service. The WMT adopts a multilevel approach reflecting a class ification of users and services according to the generated signalling load and also to the type of the invoked signalling processes. Paradig ms of the WMT further show its applicability in studying several issue s related to signalling system design. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.