A distributed adaptive protocol providing real-time services on WDM-based LANs

We consider the problem of supporting multiple classes of real-time and non-real-time traffic on a WDM-based local-area network. We present a demand-adaptive algorithm which schedules transmission according to the quality-of-service requirements of the various traffic classes. The algorithm requires one control channel, on which a single token circulates. This token is used both as a means of communicating status information between the nodes and of controlling access to each of the multiple channels. Numerical examples are provided to illustrate the performance of the algorithm.