Effect of finite buffer capacity on the performance of ATM networks

The performance of an ATM switch of a space division architecture with finite FIFO output buffer is considered. The input traffic is modeled by identical Bernoulli processes. The presented analytical approach is based on a queueing model which describes the finite queue occupancy distribution. The evaluation of the cell loss and cell mean delay is compared with previously presented analytical results. It is found that the presented simple model is suitable for determining the finite buffer effect on the ATM network performance in spite of its simplicity and its analytical tractability. An asymptotic relation is obtained between the offered load and the buffer size that gives a constant cell loss behavior. Moreover, the outstanding physical meaning of the presented procedure gives a deep insight into the ATM switch performance parameters as to the network offered load and the switch buffer capacity.