Analysis of an FDDI network supporting multiple-priority stations with single-packet buffers

The authors present exact analysis of a nonsymmetric multipriority token ring network with single packet buffers under a timed-token protocol, similar to that used for medium access control of the Fiber Distributed Data Interface (FDDI) network. An efficient iterative procedure is used to compute the limiting state distributions of the embedded Markov chains representing the system state process. The authors obtain the distributions of the token rotation time, the normalized throughput, and the mean packet waiting time. By using conditional residual delay analysis, moments of the packet delay are computed. The application of the analytic approach is illustrated through numerical examples representing FDDI network systems under various traffic conditions.<>