A major issue in design of measurement-based admission control (MBAC) algor
ithms relies on how to maximize link utilization while meeting applications
' QoS constraints. Studies have claimed that many proposed MBAC algorithms
would give the same performance if the parameters were properly tuned, In t
his paper, we study the effects of tuning two of the most important paramet
ers in MBAC algorithms: Measurement Window and Utilization Target. We show
that the measurement window is not a good tuning knob for enforcing rigid l
oss probability constraints. We propose a new parameter called Soft Utiliza
tion Target combined with a simple flow admittance policy called the Latch
algorithm. The simulation results show that this scheme can achieve better
enforcement of loss probability constraint while maintaining higher link ut
ilization. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.