Access regulation mechanism for switch-based LAN

This paper describes a mechanism that regulates access of bursty traffic so urces to a switch-based LAN. This regulation mechanism ensures global fairn ess, such that, within a well-defined global control cycle each node can tr ansmit a predefined number of data units over its adjacent links, i.e., it provides deterministic access delay bound and bandwidth. The global control cycle is created over a tree that spans a network with an arbitrary topolo gy, in contrast with previous works, in which a global control cycle was cr eated over a ring (e.g., token-ring, MetaRing). As a result, in this work t he global control cycle can be shorter and the access mechanism to the netw ork is more efficient. The regulation mechanism is based on exchanging cont rol signals between neighboring nodes. The proposed mechanism has the follo wing properties: (i) time-driven automatic stabilization, (ii) automatic to lerance of one control signal loss in every global control cycle, and (iii) only two bits of information required for the control signals. (C) 1999 El sevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.