Fast Bandwidth Access for Multimedia Traffic Classes Under QOS Constraints

Some of the applications for future high-speed networks Several types of connections with widely different bandwidth and delay requirements and a variety of traffic types including voice, video and multimedia data is expected to co-exist in ATM based Broadband-ISDN networks. One viable approach has been to classify traffic types with similar QOS and try to meet their performance requirements. Can the introduction of traffic classes affect the per connection guarantees and their performance? We investigate this issue by providing a framework for efficiently integrating a number of traffic classes while devising schemes to meet the QOS requirements of admitted traffic. We introduce the concept of potential function of a class which is a function that reflects its bandwidth requirements, utilization level changing with time of day and a parameter CY (which might determine the priority of the class) based on which bandwidth is dynamically allocated. We also discuss the operation of a multifunctional scheduler that services each class with a discrete quanta of service determined by its potential function and tries to meet specific class QOS requirements. The scheme is an efficient way of combining constant bit-rate (CBR) services with variable bit-rate (VBR) statistically multiplexed services. The feasibility of this novel bandwidth allocation and scheduling scheme is validated by extensive simulation