AN INTEGRATED SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT FOR THE ANALYSIS OF ATM NETWORKSAT MULTIPLE TIME SCALES

This paper describes the rationale and the implementation of a simulat ion environment for the analysis of ATM networks. The simulation envir onment is based on the integration of two software tools that operate at different time scales, and thus permit the computation of different types of performance metrics. The two chosen times scales are named ' 'call-level'' and ''cell-level''. The call-level time scale is the one at which the relevant events mainly concern the user access to commun ication services, hence the establishment and release of connections. The cell-level time scale instead is the one at which the relevant eve nts mainly concern the handling of ATM cells and of the PDUs that are transfer-red by means of them. An example of use of the simulation env ironment demonstrates the power and the advantages of this novel integ rated approach. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.