An evaluation of the ABR explicit-rate allocation interfering with the guaranteed services traffic

In this paper, we evaluate operation of the available bit rate (ABR) explic it-rate allocation in a presence of variable background traffic of the guar anteed services. Specifically, impact of a switch averaging interval, long range-dependence of the guaranteed traffic, and network scaling are analyze d. Both single and multiple node network cases are considered with respecti ve simulation models. Observed performance metrics of concern include mean queue length, utilization, and allocation fairness. On the basis of the obt ained results, it is observed that for both single and multiple node networ ks a switch averaging interval close to the longest round-trip delay fairly meets the performance objectives of concern. In our previous work, we clai m that long-range dependency (LRD) of the guaranteed services traffic could be transferred to the ABR traffic through the rate allocation. Hereby, it is shown that intensity of the transferred LRD decays as the network scalin g increases. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserve d.