Traffic Control in High-speed ATM Networks
Peifang Zhou and Oliver W. W. Yang
School of Information Technology and Engineering
University of Ottawa
Ottawa. Ontario
Canada I<lN 6N5
E-mail: yang Qsite.uottawa.ca
Abstract
Thzs paper presents a frameuiork of traffic control i n
hzgh-speed AT.11 netuorks on boih connection level and
cell leuel. O n the connection level, we consider traf-
fic classification, bandulzdth allocataon, call admzssion
control, and billing method. O n the cell leuel. we ezam-
ine queueing archateciure. f l o w control, and schedulzng.
W e also capture the interdependencaes among varzous
traffic control aspects t o ensure a proper network opera-
tion. The key contribution of this paper is an integrated
methodology i o handle bursty data traffic. Based on the
per-\% queueing archztecture, we introduce I ) a szm-
ple banduidth allocation mechanism which requzres no
complex computation for call admzssion control, .2} an
improved credit-based flow control scheme which ensures
lossless and congestzon-free cell iransport, 3) an inno-
uatrve scheduling algorzthm wzth throughput guarantee.
and 4) an easy billing method which imposes tariff on
bursty data flows without real-time measurement and
processing.
Keywords: AT11 networking, traffic control, quality of
services issues, d a t a traffic engineering, network control
management.
1 Introduction
ATN networks supply switching and transport infras-
tructure in an integrated fashion to a wide multitude
of broadband multi-media services. To provide such
a wide spectrum of services with acceptable grades of
quality of service ( Q o S ) , it is necessary to design flow
regulation and resource management schemes and algo-
rithms. \Yith communication bandwidth well into t h e
Gb/s range, the ratio between propagation delay a n d
cell transmission time becomes very large, thereby ren-
dering ineffective many of the traffic control schemes
that rely on the feedback from the network to regulate
traffic flow. It becomes obvious that new approaches
need to he developed in the area of traffic control.
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0-8186-9014-3/98 $10.00 0 1998 IEEE
Many broadband services demand the underlying
high-speed networks to provide them with t.heir char-
acteristically required levels of performance. Key QoS
parameters include delay, throughput, cell loss ratio.
etc. Enforcing QoS parameters requires a complex in-
t.erplay among call admission control, handwidth alloca-
tion, flow control, queueing, link scheduling, priorit ips.
discard policies, etc. T h e design of the entire entl-to-
end system and the interaction of various componeiits
are often more important than the optimization of intli-
vidual e:lements. A related issue is t,he tratleoff between
efficiency and implementation complexity. It is often
preferable to have simple schemes that are less efficient
but can be easily implemented a t Gb/s speeds than to
have schiemes which are efficient but complex. \Vithin
this cont;ext, we present a framework of traffic control in
high-speed ATM networks on both connection level and
cell level. On t,he connection level, we consider traffic
classification, bandwidth allocation, call admission con-
trol, and billing method. On the cell level, we exam-
ine queueing architecture, flow control, and scheduling.
Unlike other papers which tend to focus on a particular
topic, this paper considers the traffic control problem
from thle inter-operation point of view, and captures
the interdependencies among various traffic control as-
pects to ensure a proper network operat,ion. T h e em-
phasis is on the development of a traffic control scheme
t h a t can be easily implemented a t Gb/s speeds in every
node throughout high-speed networks. The key contri-
bution of this paper is an integrated methodology to han-
dle bursty d a t a traffic. Based on the per-VC queueing
architecture, we introduce
0 a simple bandwidth allocation mechanism which
requires no complex computation for call admission
control,
0 an improved credit-based flow control scheme to
ensure lossless and congestion-free cell transport,
0 an innovat.ive scheduling algorit.hin \vit.h throrig11-
put guarantee, and
 an easy billing method which imposes tariff on
0
bursty d a t a flows without real-time measurement
and processing.
T h e rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section
2 presents our proposed fraiiiework of traffic control on
both connection and cell levels. Section 3 conducts per-
formance evaluation of our proposed schemes. Section
4 concludes the paper.
2 A Framework of Traffic Con-
trol
T h e objective of any t,raffic control schemes is to pro-
vide a stable. lossless, congestion-free environment to
carry t,raffic while achieving as much multiplexing gain
as possible. In this section. we presents a framework of
traffic control on both connection level and cell level.
On the connection level: we address the issues of traf-
fic classification. bandwidth allocation. call admission
control (C'AC), and billing method. \\'e then translate
the requirements on the connection level into those on
the cell level. and we consider the queueing architecture
within switches. flow control between switches, and link
scheduling.
2.1 Connection-level traffic control
In this subsection. we examine the issues of traffic clas-
sification, bandwidth allocation, call admission control!
and billing method on the connection level of traffic
control.
2.1.1 Tiaffic classification
ATM supports transport of mixed traffic and there are
essentially two types traffic within a n ATM network.
One type is continuous stream traffic such as voice and
video, which is sensitive to delay but tolerant to a cer-
tain level of cell loss. Another type is bursty d a t a traf-
fic such as IP packets. which is sensitive to cell loss but
can accommodate delay. \Frith a well-tuned flow con-
trol mechanism [lo], we can eliminate cell loss for d a t a
traffic. Therefore we can classify traffic based only on
the delay attribute. In our proposed framework, we di-
vide traffic into two types: delay-sensitive traffic and
delay-insensitive traffic.
2.1.2 Bandwidth allocation
Feedback control is not appropriate for delay-sensitive
traffic, because cells are only meaningful to the des-
tination when they arrive in time, and they are coni-
pletely useless if they are out of specified delay bound-
184
,Throughput Link Capacity
-__
Delay-insensitiveTraffic
Time
Figure 1: Bandwidth sharing between delay-sensitive
and delay-insensitive traffic.
ary. Feedback control will inevitably introduce UII-
necessary delays, which can not be tolerated by the
delay-sensit.ive traffic. Instead, we can simply elimi-
nate any feedback control on delay-sensitive traffic, give
them priority treatment, and let them go through the
transportation pipe without any impediment. This is
the best a network can do for delivering delay-sensitive
cells. However this arrangement requires t,hat resources
have to be reserved along t.he path from the source to
the destination. In other words, bandwidth should he
reserved and allocated by the peak rate.
Although we use peak-rate allocation for delay-
sensitive traffic, we can still achieve high bandwidth uti-
lization by recycling unused bandwidths: we fill in the
gap between actual bandwidth of delay-sensitive traffic
and physical link capacity with delay-insensitive traffic.
T h e key idea is t h a t any bandwidth unused by delay-
sensitive connections is momentarily made available to
delay-insensitive ones. T h e scenario is depicted in Fig-
ure 1. Delay-insensitive traffic tend to be bursty and
they have different QoS requirements. They have a high
peak-to-average ratio, and they are mainly concerned
with instantaneous bandwidth throughput. When a
connection source transmits a t peak rate which results
in a burst arriving at a n intermediate node/switch, we
need to increase t h e bandwidth allocated to the con-
nection as much as possible to get the burst out of t h e
switch quickly. In other words. we need to devise a
scheduling scheme which can adjust handwidth accord-
ing t o the state of t h e connection. On the other hand,
we have to recognize t h a t each link in a network has
a limited capacity and it is shared among many con-
nections, therefore we have to treat connections in a
fair and square way a n d properly allocate unused band-
width for each individual connection.
\Ve propose t h a t each delay-insensitive connection
specify or negotiate with the underlying network an av-
erage transport rate or bandwidth it requires during the
connection’s setup time. This average bandwidth will
be guaranteed by the network. Nodes/switches inside
the network should re-allocate any unused bandwidth
and therefore they shall allow a higher transmission rate
when a burst arrives. In other words, instantaneous
transmission rate can be higher than the average band-
width which is agreed upon during the connection’s
setup time. This is one of the connection-level require-
ments which need to be implemented on the cell-level
in each AT11 switch. IVe shall present a cell scheduling
algorithm to satisfy the above requirement in the nest
sect ion.
2.1.3 Call admission control
Based on our proposed traffic classification and band-
width allocation discussed in the previous subsections,
call admission control is fairly simple and straightfor-
ward. A call or connection which requires bandwidth
bw will be admitted if the following condition is satis-
fied a t every node/switch along the path from source to
destination:
existing
where C’‘L is the outgoing link capacity. In other words,
a call/connection will be admitted if its required band-
width does not exceed what is left in terms of band-
width capacity. For a delay-sensitive connection. bw
represents the peak rate. For a delay-insensitive connec-
tion, bw is the average transniission rate. If a connec-
tion is admitted. the bandwidth requirement bw repre-
sents the commitment made by a node/switch to trans-
mit cells at rate bill calculated over a long period of time.
For clelay-iiisensit,ive connections, the actual through-
put depends on the source rate and the load condition
a t each node. As we shall see later, the throughput
can go much higher than bw in a light load condition
because of an innovative scheduling algorithm imple-
mented in every node. From another point of view, bw
is the minimum transmission rate guaranteed by a node
under the heavy load condition.
2.1.4 Billing method
Current Internet eniploys an “all you can eat” pricing
model. However, giving everyone unlimited access t o
a network with finite bandwidth is a recipe for con-
gestion, as epitomized by t,he well-known phenomenon
of .‘IVorld \Vide iVait”. I t becomes inevitable that
we have to met,er network bandwidth usage, providing
quality of service ( Q o S ) and making network perfor-
mance pr(dictable. Real-time metering is preferable,
185
but it doesn’t, work in practice, especially in high-speed
networks. The reason is quite simple: real-time measur-
ing generates astronomical amount of data which need
to be storNed and processed. The storage and processing
power reqjuired are just too demanding to be fulfilled.
In authors’ point of view. real-time metering is unnec-
essary. We can simply charge each connection based
on the rake it requested. For delay-sensitive connec-
tions, pricing will be based on the peak rate. Such con-
nections pay a premium for a higher bandwidth than
what might be necessary, but they obtain a higher pri-
ority and resource guarantee to achieve minimum delay.
For delay-insensitive connections, pricing will be based
on the average rate specified during connection’s setup
time. T h e network will guarantee the bandwidth re-
quested in c o n g e s f e d situation, but will provide a higher
throughput if the load is light. In other words, delay-
insensitive connections can reap statist.ical niult,iplesing
gain by rseusing handwidth left by delay-sensitive con-
nections. If a delay-insensitive connection wants to in-
crease the transmission rate provided by the network. it
can simplly order a higher average handwidth and pay
according;ly. In summary, our pricing model is practical,
because it doesn’t require any real-time measiiremmt
and processing.
2.2 Cell-level traffic control
In this subsection. we examine the issues of queueing.
flow control, and scheduling on the cell-level traffic c o w
tiol.
2.2.1 Queueing architecture
In most proposed switch architectures in literat,ure
[l. 91, -YI‘M switches were port-oriented. They were
based on “first-in, first-out” (FIFO) principle: cells
from various virtual connections (VCs) leaving an out-
put port were organized into a FIFO queue and pro-
cessed in the order in which they arrived. The func-
tionalit,y of traditional ATAI switches was limited to
routing cells from input ports to output ports. As we
all know. the operations of ATM networks are not just
limited to the transport of cells from sources to their
destinatitons. ATM networks have to handle ATM traf-
fic efficiently and reliably. ATM switch is an essential
element of an AThI network, and it should be designed
in line with the operations of the network. We argue
that ATM switches should be traffic-flow-oriented and
switches should handle each traffic flow separately. New
AT\I switches that are currently being developed will
provide per-VC queueing [IO], and therefore they can
handle each traffic flow or coniiection separately.
The shift from port-oriented design to flow-oriented
design in the structure of ATlI switches is significant,
and it has profound implications on the operations of
ATM networks. Per-VC‘ queueing is the cornerstone
of our proposed framework of traffic control on the cell
level. T h e other two components of cell-level traffic con-
trol, floiv control mechanism and link scheduling algo-
rithm, are based on the per-\’C queueing architecture.
2.2.2 Flow control
Since we use peak rate allocation for delay-sensitive
t.raffic. we can eliminate flow control on delay-sensitive
connections. Cells which belong to those connections
receive priority treatment. and they will traverse in-
terim nodes/switches inside the net,work without any
hurdle. Flow control is however necessary for delay-
insensitive traffic. We use average bandwidth for delay-
insensitive connections. but the instantaneous through-
put can he much higher than the average. Therefore
flow control is essential for delay-insensitive connections
to ensure a lossless, congest ion-free environment.
T h e credit-based flow control for ABR service was re-
jected by the ATAI Forum in 1994, because it required
per-IyC queueing in switches and was considered too
complex to implement. Recent development in switch
design made it possible to implement per-VC queueing
in AT11 switches [lo]. Credit-based flow control repre-
sents t,remendous advantages over it.s rate-based coun-
terpart. and in t,his paper we argue t h a t credit-based
flow control should be used in the AT11 \VANS.
Credit-hased flow cont,rol is fast and effective. Con-
trol theory dictates that any control loop must operate
faster than the device it controls. This is impossible in
AT11 \i--ASs. where the round-trip time for any control
signal is limited by the speed of light (this is physics
and round-trip delay can’t be improved!), and the of-
fered traffic load can fluctuate faster than the round-
trip time. In the rate-based algorithms. Rhl cells are
used for traffic nianagement and all R11 cells esperi-
ence round-trip delays. In other words. an ABR traffic
source relies on the network-wide knowledge (returned
Rhl cells) to acljust its sending rate. a n d controls on
traffic can‘t be enforced quickly and effectively due to
the long round-trip delay. This is why hop-by-hop con-
trol is preferred over end-to-end control. All traffic
sources can respond promptly once credits are avail-
able from the receiver of the nest hop. without waiting
for any feedback control signal froni the destination a t
the far end.
Another advantage of using a credit-base flow control
is the guarantee of zero cell loss. This is extremely im-
portant for loss-sensitive data t.raffic. .As we all know
that for d a t a traffic. t,he loss of even one cell can trigger
a retransmission o f t housantls of cells. Credits represent
186
the amount of buffer space available a t the nest-hop re-
ceiver. If the transmitter does not exceed this quantity
of data, there is no risk of buffer overflow. Even under
extreme overloadsj queue lengthes inside switches can’t
grow beyond what the credits allowed. In contrast.
rate-based approaches can not guarantee zero cell loss.
Under estreme overloads, queues can easily grow large,
resulting in buffer overflow and cell loss. Credit-based
schemes address the root cause of congestion, which is
the unespected arrivals from various sources, and de-
mand t h a t no cell can be transmitted to the receiver
without its permission. As a result of this kind of strict
restriction. the feedback control loop is inherently stable
and no cell will ever be lost.
In our hop-by-hop credit-based flow control scheme.
there are two credit types. link credit and VC credit.
between two adjacent switches. Link credit represents
the masimum number of cells the upstream switch can
transmit ( o r the maximum number of cells the doivn-
stream sn*itch can receive). without overflowing the
buffer in the downstream switch. VC credit is set on a
per VC basis. and it controls the masimuni number of
cells the upstream switch can send on the VC (or the
masinium number of cells the downstream switch can
receive on the VC). In summary, there is one link credit
and many VC credits between two adjacent switches.
Within link credit and VC credit liniits, the upstream
can transmit cells on any VC.
It is worthwhile to point out our proposal is different.
from the original credit-based flow control scheme and
credit update protocol (CUP) [6]. In [6], flow control
was receiver-oriented, credits maintained by the sender
were updated by the receiver on a per-VC basis, and
there was no link credit. However, our flow control
is both receiver- and sender-oriented: receiver controls
sender’s credit limits (both link credit and VC credits),
but sender can select any VC to transmit within the
limits.
We set limits on VC credits to address the issue of
fairness. so t h a t no single VC or a group of VCs will
dominate. T h e s u m of individual VC credits can be
much greater than link credit. This gives the upstream
switch flexibility as t o which VC to dispatch cells. It
allows a burst of cells to “blast” through the switch
if traffic load is moderate. This is very desirable for
bursty d a t a traffic.
In summary, we use peak rate bandwidth allocation
and no flow control for delay-sensitive traffic, and hop-
by-hop credit-based flow control for delay-insensitive
traffic. Delay-sensitive traffic are transported with any
barrier, while delay-insensitive cells will not be admit-
ted to the network after credits are exhaust.ed because
of congestions within t.he network. In essence. all traf-
fic flow are well regulated. either by peak-rat.e con-
straint, or by available credits. In this fashion, we get
rid of the root cause of congestion, which is the un-
predicted arrivals of traffic. Therefore ATM networks
operate in a stable, congestion-free, and lossless (for
delay-insensitive traffic) environment.
2.2.3 Sclieduling
Per-VC queueing architecture facilitates scheduling of
cell transmission, because scheduler can obtain queue
information on a per-VC basis. It is much easier for the
scheduler to make decisions to provide QoS guarantee
for each and every VC connection. In this subsection,
we propose a scheduling algorithm for per-VC queueing
ATAI switches. which allows a much higher instanta-
neous throughput than the average. This is one of the
requirements from the connection-level traffic control
that needs to be implemented on the cell-level.
The operation of each outgoing link is time-slotted.
Each time slot corresponds to the transmission time of
one AT11 cell. There is a link scheduler for every out-
going link. Link scheduler selects cells for transmission
on a frame basis (logically) with iV slots in a frame. For
a connection i with an average bandwidth requirement
of b m , , the slot ration r, in a frame is
btu.
r’ - 2 x S, i E { D S , D I } .
- CL
where D S is the set of delay-sensitive connections and
D I is the set of delay-insensitive connections.
At the beginning of a frame, the scheduler for a n out-
put link inspects all VC queues associated with the link,
and schedules transmission of cells in each VC queue up
to the VC’s ration. We impose credit-based flow control
for delay-insensitive connections. Therefore cell trans-
mission is subject to the availability of credit. This
condition is implied throughout this subsection and we
won’t repeat it from now on.
Since we use peak-rate allocation for delay-sensitive
connections, cells in delay-sensitive VC queues never
exceed their rations. Let ni be the number of cells in the
VC queue for connection i a t the beginning of a frame,
DS represent the set of delay-sensitive connections, we
have
nj 5 rj, j E D S . (3)
For delay-insensitive connections, the number of cells
at the beginning of a frame can be larger than their
rations. \Ve divide delay-insensitive connection into two
sets: DII’ and D I O . D I U designates the set of delay-
insensitive connections for which the numbers of cells
a t the beginning of a frame are under their rations, i.e..
D I U = {delay-insensitive connection k. nk 5 Q}.
(4)
187
D I O represents t,he set of delay-insensitive connec-
tions for which the numbers of cells at the beginning of
a frame are over their rations, i.e.,
DIO =: {delay-insensitive connection 1, nl > r , } . ( 5 )
From the the scheduling point of view, some slots in
an iV-slot frame may be un-allocated, and not all slots
allocated to connections in D S and DIU are utilized.
We can calculate extra slots unused by connections in
the sets D S and DIG‘ as follows:
es =(N - ri) + x(rj,- n j , ) + x ( r . i . ,- nk,),
1 J t k,
i E { D S . D I } , ji E D S , hi E DII’. ( 6 )
To achieve multiplexing gain among connrctions. we
need t.o re-allocate those extra slots left by connections
in the set D S and DIlT. and use them to dispatch cells
which belong to connections in D I O . In the mean time.
connections in D I P should be credited for “freeing up“
slots which allows the scheduler to transmit cells for
other connections. They should be compensated by be-
ing allowed to transmit more cells than rations later 011.
Data traffic are bursty. iVhen a burst arrives. a connec-
tion may experience the transition from the set D I I - to
D I O , arid it is fair for the connection to claim prrvi-
ously unused rations to transmit more cells and get thc
burst quickly out of the I’C queue. In other words. the
scheduler should schedule more cell transmissions for
connections which haven‘t used up their rations. This
should be viewed as part of scheduler’s cornmitnient of
providing average bandwidth to every delay-insensit ive
connection. For this purpose, we introduce a gmnt vari-
able. gi for connection i . to keep track of unused ration
on a per-VC basis. T h e value of gi is non-negat,ive. It
is initialized as 0 (zero). It is incremented when fewer
cells thain connection i ‘ s ration are scheduled at the be-
ginning of a frame, and it is decremented when more
cells (up to g k ) than connection i ‘ s ration are scheduled
during a frame.
Our proposed scheduler calculates extra slots avail-
able in each frame, and selects connections which have
grunts a.vailable for transmitting more cells than their
rations. The selection is based on the grant variable.
The larger value of g r a n t , the higher priority a connec-
tion has.. If grants are used up for all connections but
extra slots are still not exhausted. the scheduler will
select connections in t,he set DIO for cell transmission.
Based on our billing policy t,hat end users pay more for
higher bandwidth. the scheduler will distribute extra
slots based on the bandwidth requirement. The higher
bandwidth a connection requires. t h e higher priority
the connection has. Here we need to iiitroduce another
absorption variable to keep t,rack of cxt,ra bandwidt h
consumption on a per-VC basis. T h e absorption vari-
able, ai for connection i, is non-negative. It starts a t 0
(zero)? and it is increment.ed when a connection takes
advantage of extra slots available in a frame to transmit
more cells. The smaller value of absorption, the higher
priority a connection has in consuming any extra slots.
T o maintain fairness among connections which have re-
quired different bandwidths and to reflect tariff imposed
on different bandwidths. any extra bandwidth left by
connections in DS and DIU should be distributed in
proportion to bandwidth requirements for connections
in the set D I O . In other words, extra slot usage needs
to be nornialized by the bandwidth requirement,. If m i
extra slots are used by connection I . its absorption vari-
able a ( , should be updated as follows:
(7)
where Ii is a positive constant., and a1 is the updated
value of (11.
Note that calculation in the above scheduling algo-
rithm is performed on a per connection basis. not on a
per cell basis. This leads to a significant reduction in
computational effort when the algorithm is compared
with other ones [2. 7, 81 which mark a time-stamp on
every arriving cell. Therefore our discipline is much
simpler than virtual time-stamp type of scheduling al-
gorithms. This makes our algorithm a feasible candi-
date for practical implementation in per-VC queueing
ATM switches.
3 Performanee Analysis
In this section. we conduct performance analysis of our
proposed framework of traffic control. We focus on
the following most important QoS parameters: delay,
throughput, and cell loss ratio.
3.1 Delay and Delay Jitter Bounds
In a previous section, we proposed a logical frame struc-
ture of .V cell slots for a link with capacity C L . T h e
frame duration is denoted as T . S o w we derive the
end-to-end delay bound, assuming t h a t the same N-slot
frame structure and link capacity C L are used within
t h e network. The end-t,o-end delay is defined t,o be the
time elapsed between the arrival of a cell a t the first-hop
access switch and t,he receipt of the cell a t t.he last-hop
access switch.
First we obtain the delay hound at the first-hop ac-
cess switch. LVe assume t h a t h e r e are k connections
188
whose peak rate summation is less than C L I N , i.e.,
k
L‘L
-
Cpri I 7: A.
i=l
where pri is the peak rate for connection i . Because
the rate summation of the above k connections is not
greater t h a n the bandwidth allocated to one slot in a n
N-slot frame structure, we can arrange cells from these
k connections to share the same slot position in consec-
utive frames.
There are two components for the delay experienced
by a cell arriving a t the first-hop access switch: the
waiting time to be transmitted and the service time for
the transmission of the cell. We first calculate the wait-
ing time encountered by the cell. In the worst case, one
cell from each of the k connections arrives a t the same
time, a n d they all miss the start of a frame. They have
to wait for the start of the next frame. \.Ve niark the cell
from one connection as ‘*tagged”. This “tagged” cell
has to wait for the finish of transmission of cells from
other ( k - 1) connections, and therefore the .‘tagged”
cell experiences the longest waiting time, which is
d, 5 T + ( k - 1)T+ T = ( k + 1)T. (9)
T h e first term in the above equation represents the up-
per bound of waiting time for the start of a new frame.
the second term is the time elapsed to transmit ( k - 1 )
cells in t h e same slot position. and the last term is the
upper bound between the start of frame and the start
of transmission of the “tagged” cell.
Now we calculate the second component of the clelay
at t h e first-hop access switch. which is the cell trans-
mission time. Let 1 denote the cell length. T h e cell
transmission time m is
1
m = -.
CL
Combining the above two terms, we can express the
delay d l , at the first-hop access switch as
Since cells from the above 12 connections share the
same slot position, the superposition of these k con-
nections will be treated as a single connection coming
o u t of t h e access switch and going into core of t h e net-
work. Reusing eqn. (9), we have delays introduced at
the core switches with a maximum of 2T each. If there
are h hops between the first-hop access switch and the
last-hop access switch, the maximum delay introduced
by switches other than the first one will be h x 2T. T h e
delay ititroduced by all swit.ches is given by
1
d,, = di, i-
h x 2T I ( k + l)T+ - +h x 2T. (12)
CL
 Adding the the propagation delay prop to the above
d,,, we will attain the end-to-end delay d ,
1
d =pr~p+d,, 5 prop+ ( I : + 1 ) T + c
'+ h x 2T.
L variable. Connections with less absorption values have
Based on the above analysis and derivation, we can eas-
ily obtain the upper bound and lower bound of the end-
to-end delay d:
I among absorption variables are much smaller than ab-
d,,,ax 5 p r o p + ( I : +1)T+ -
CL
+ h x 2T
T h e delay jitter dj is defined as the diffcrence between
d,,,, and d,,,,. The upper bound for delay jitter can
be tleri\etl from eqn. (14) and eqn. (1.5) as follows:
If the rate of a connection is so large that at least two
cells have to be forwarded in a franie. we can decompose
the connection into sub-connections, such that we can
use the above derivation to obtain similar results.
3.2 Throughput
Our per-\'C queueing scheduler ( P V Q S ) has attractive
properties that can be expressed by the following lem-
inas and theorem.
Lemma 1: P\'QS provides bandwidth guarantee for
every connection.
Proof: For an outgoing link with capacity C'L and N
(logical) slots in a frame. we allocate slot ration T ; for
connection i according to eqn. (2):
b 111.
r . - 2 x .y . ie { D S . D I )
- C'L
The baiidwidth allocated by PVQS to connection i is
Loinilia 2: P\'QS is fair in the sense t h a t it allocates
any est ra hailclwidth in proportion to requested band-
witltlis.
Proof: L ' Ve use the absorption variable to keep track
of e x t r a slot usage. If there are any extra slots left
by connections in D S and D I U , PVQS sorts out con-
(13) nections in the set DIO according to the absorption
a higher priority to use extra slots to transmit more
cells. After cell transmission, a connection's absorption
variable is increased and the connection has less chance
to use any more slots. In the long run, the differences
(14) sorption variables themselves. Let I and J represent
extra sloi s consumed by connections i and j during the
interval (0,x). Ignoring the small difference between
absorption variables al and a,, we have
Q.E.D.
Theorern: For delay-insensitive connection i , the es-
tra bandwidth received beyond t he requested average
bandwid1 h bw, is
Proof: From Lemma 2. any remaining bandwidth ca-
pacity, which is CL - Clbw, - clbu.,, i E D I . j E
DS. will be distributed in proportion to requested av-
erage rates of the delay-insensitive connections. For
delay-insensitive connection i which has requested a
rate bw,. its portion in total requested average band-
width is bw,/ E, bw,, therefore connection i can benefit
from the following extra bandwidth beyond bw,:
bw;
extra bandwidth = -x (CL- bwj - bwj),
bwiXi i j
i E D I , j E DS. Q.E.D.
3.3 Cell loss ratio
\Ve consider t h e buffer requirement for delay-sensitive
and dela,y-insensitive connections in the core switches.
For delay-sensitive connections, we use peak-rate allo-
cation and reserve enough slots accordingly. T h e masi-
m u m number of delay-sensitive cell arrivals in an .V-slot
frame is ,V. Therefore the buffering requirement :\IDS
for delay-sensitive connectioiis is N cells, i.e.,
= ,V,
.UD~ for delay-sensitive connections. (Id)
189
 Now n e consider the case for delay-insensitive flows.
In our flow control proposal, link credit represents the
maxiniuin buffer space available in the receiver (down-
stream switch). As long as the sender (upperstream
switch) does not send more cells than what the link
credit allows. no buffer overflow will occur in the re-
ceiver.
HoweLer, receiver has to take into account the link
delay before sender receives any link credit update. In
the worst case, the maximum number of cells A U othat ~
can be transmitted by the sender before it receives feed-
back from the receiver is
where C‘L is the link capacity and RTT is the round-
trip time between a sender and a receiver. Therefore,
the minimum buffer size required a t the downstream
switch to prevent buffer overflow is given by
As long as the downstream switch maintains a buffer
size of at least B,,,i,, there is no cell loss.
In suniniary. our proposed framework of traffic con-
trol imposes an upper bound on the e n d - b e n d delay for
delay-sensitive connections. It also provides throughput
guarantee for delay-insensitive connections. and ensures
zero cell loss.
4 Conclusion
In this paper, we int,roduced a framework of traffic con-
trol in high-speed A T l I networks on both connection
level and cell level. On the connection level, we consid-
ered traffic classification, bandwidth allocation, call ad-
mission cont.rol. and billing method. On the cell level,
we examined queueing architecture, flow control, and
scheduling. This paper considered the traffic control
problem from the inter-operation point of view, and
captured the int.erdependencies among various traffic
control aspects to ensure a proper network operation.
T h e key cont,ribution of this paper was an iniegrated
methodology t,o handle bursty d a t a traffic. Based on
the per-VC queueing architecture, we introduced 1) a
simple bandwiclth allocation mechanism which required
no complex computation for call admission control, 2)
an improved credit-based flow control scheme which en-
sured lossless and congestion-free cell transport, 3 ) an
innovative scheduling algorithm with throughput guar-
antee. and 4 ) an easy billing method which imposed
tariff on Itursty (lata flows wit,liout real-t inie measure-
190
ment and processing.
A ckn ow1e d gm e nt
This paper is partially supported by an NSERC Oper-
ating G r a n t under contract #OGP0042878.
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