OPTIMIZING ROUTING IN PACKET-SWITCHED NETWORKS WITH NON-POISSON OFFERED TRAFFIC

Routing models for packet-switched networks have traditionally been ba sed on the assumption that the offered traffic is Poisson. This is unr ealistic since for many applications, real life data streams tend to b e extremely ''bursty'', contradicting the Poisson assumption. This pap er introduces a centralized bifurcated routing optimization model for networks with significantly non-Poisson offered traffic. The central p urpose of the work is to assess the impact of non-Poisson traffic on r outing algorithm developed for Poisson flows. A systematic testing pla n for networks with a simple topology and variable levels of capacity, demand and packet length was designed. The results confirmed that Poi sson delay formulas together with classical Poisson routing are not ap propriate when significant demand is highly variable. The results also show that non-Poisson delay formulas are crucial to the assessment of average delay in these cases.