PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKING OF SIGNALING IN ATM NETWORKS

The overhead associated with establishing switched virtual circuits (S VCs) in high-speed wide area ATM networks is an important performance factor in applications with client/server architectures, including the World Wide Web and low-latency applications such as command/control a nd modeling/simulation. This article quantifies this overhead by descr ibing a benchmarking framework implemented in a reliable, portable, an d easily expandable toolset designed to conduct measurements of well-d efined parameters and performance metrics on equipment that is either isolated or connected to a live network. The usefulness of this toolse t is then demonstrated in a test suite applied to assess call rates an d connection establishment latency of point-to-point and point-to-mult ipoint ATM connections in the MAGIC, ATDnet, and AAI WANs, on the camp us ATM LAN at NRL, and on individual switches in our laboratories.