The Available Bit Rate (ABR) service of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks employs explicit rate notification algorithms to ensure better and fair distribution of available bandwidth among contending sources. The Enhanced Proportional Rate Control Algorithm (EPRCA) is one of the explicit rate control algorithms recommended by the ATM forum. In this paper, we identify deficiencies and problems associated with EPRCA and show that these cause unfairness in bandwidth utilization by the contending sources. We propose modification in EPRCA and call it Modified Enhanced Proportional Rate Control Algorithm (EPRCAM). We will argue and show through simulation results that EPRCAM leads to better link utilization and fair bandwidth allocation among contending sources. In our simulation model, EPRCAM results in as high as 97. 8% link utilization without cell loss.

In order to improve fairness and stability of TCP best-effort service we propose a new congestion control algorithm using packet loss information obtained from Selective Acknowledgments (SACK), and evaluate its effectiveness by simulation. The proposed scheme is for an environment consisting of Random Early Detection (RED) routers which drop each arriving packet with a certain probability after a threshold. The proposed mechanism adjusts the decrease in congestion window for Fast Recovery and the increase in congestion window per ACK during the congestion avoidance phase according to the number of lost packets. Simulation results show that not only the bandwidth allocation fairness is improved but also throughput deviation is markedly reduced resulting in more stable transport capability.

This paper shows new techniques to construct a service network which realizes responsive large-size data transmission for widely distributed mass users. We set our service target as transferring mega-byte scale data from a server to a client within one second. ATM is recognized as a powerful technology with which to construct a wide area network infrastructure that supports multiple bandwidth services. Our fundamental principles in developing such a service network are as follows: a) The bandwidth sharing mechanism should be of the best effort rather than resource reservation type. This is because only best effort schemes remove bandwidth reservation/release overheads. b) More than a 100 Mb/s data transmission rate should be supported throughout data transfer. c) Data transfer should be completed within the round trip through the network (or a small multiple thereof). This is necessary to minimize the effect of transmission time in large-scale networks. d) The user network interface should be simply defined to allow independent evolution of both network and terminal technologies. e) Congestion control must block the spread of congestion within the network. Based on these principles, we propose the "ATM superpacket network (ATM-SN)" as the service network to realize our target service. Key techniques are as follows. (1) Best effort and cut-through transmission of superpackets whose length reaches ten mega-bytes. (2) Network nodes with large-capacity buffer memories that prevent superpacket collisions. (3) Superpacket admission control at network nodes to prevent cell overflow. (4) Superpacket-based congestion control. Our proposal assumes the existence of a high-quality ATM infrastructure that can provide a large bandwidth with a high-quality DBR cell transmission capability (cell loss ratio is less than 10E-7) and small bit error ratios (less than 10E-10). First, we detail our proposal of the ATM-SN. Next, we propose a superpacket-based congestion control technique coupled with a simple Usage Parameter Control function. We then show the evaluation results of those key techniques to confirm the effectiveness of the superpacket network.

One of the important challenges in the design of ATM networks is how to provide quality-of-service (QoS) while maintaining high network resource utilization. In this paper, we discuss the role of real-time traffic characterization in QoS control for ATM networks and review several approaches to the problem of resource allocation. We then describe a particular framework for QoS control in which real-time measurements of a connection stream are used to determine appropriate parameters for usage parameter control (UPC). Connection admission control (CAC) is based on the characterization of the aggregate stream in terms of the individual stream UPC descriptors, together with real-time measurements.

This paper studies a congestion control scheme in integrated variable bit-rate video, audio and data (e. g. , image or text) communications, where each video stream is synchronized with the corresponding audio stream. When the audio and video streams are output, media synchronization control is performed. To avoid congestion, we employ a dynamic video resolution control scheme which dynamically changes the video encoding rate according to the network loads. By simulation, the paper evaluates the performance of the scheme in terms of throughput, loss rate, average delay, and mean square error of synchronization. Numerical results show the effectiveness of the scheme.

This paper presents analysis of a congestion control scheme in which a multiplexer notifies upstream traffic sources when its buffer level crosses a preset threshold. Upon notification, the traffic streams are reshaped to a form less likely to cause overflow through rate or burstiness restrictions, or a combination of the two. For the analysis, the traffic is modeled by two Markov Modulated Rate Processes (MMRP's), one for above and one for below the threshold, and an iterative fluid approximation technique is used to determine the buffer occupancy distribution. Simulation results verify the accuracy of the approach, and the analysis is used to study the effect of varying the threshold and shaping function.

While active researches have been continuously made on the ATM switch architectures and the QoS service guarantees, most of them have been treated independently in the past. In this paper, we first explain the architectural requirement on the ATM switches to implement the mechanism of QoS guarantees in the context of ATM congestion control. Then we discuss how a vital link between two should be built, and remaining problems are pointed out.

In this paper, a new traffic shaping mechanism for ATM networks, the RC Shaper, is proposed and studied. The objective of a shaping mechanism is, to smoothen the traffic by reducing the burstiness. Using the analogies between the RC low pass filter and the proposed shaper, performance measures such as burstiness reduction factor and cell mean waiting time of the shaper can be obtained. In this current exploratory stage of study, the shaper is used to shape the well-known Markov Modulated Poisson Process. Behaviour of the shaper is established through examining the burstiness reduction achieved by the device. Another performance measure obtained for the shaper is the cell mean waiting time. Difference in shaping each connection individually and a group of connections collectively is also observed. From our results, it seems better to shape VCs within a virtual path `aggregately' instead of shaping each of these VCs individually. Comparison with fixed-rate shaper is reported and difference in multiplexing shaped and unshaped cell streams is also observed.

A new adaptive rate control with congestion prediction is developed that is highly robust against long propagation delays. It minimizes the network performance degradation caused by the delay based on prediction by extrapolating past data and correction using new notification. The simulation results show that our proposed control maintains high throughput and a smaller buffer even in long propagation delay networks, like ATM-WAN.

We investigate performance of TCP protocol over ATM networks by using a simulation technique. As the ATM layer, we consider (1) rate-based control of the ABR service class and (2) an EPD (Early Packet Discard) technique applied to the UBR service class and (3) and EPD with per-VC accounting for fairness enhancement applied to the UBR service class. In comparison, we adopt a multi-hop network model where the multiple ATM switches are interconnected. In such a network, unfairness among connections is a possible cause of the problem due to differences of the number of hops and/or the round trip times among connections. Simulation results show that the rate-based control method of ABR achieves highest throughput and best fairness in most circumstances. However, the performance of TCP over ABR is degraded once the cell loss takes place due to the inappropriate control parameter setting. To avoid this performance degradation, we investigate the appropriate parameter set suitable to TCP on ABR service. As a result, parameter tuning can improve the performance of TCP over ABR, but limited. We therefore consider TCP over ABR with EPD enhancement where the EPD technique is incorporated into ABR. We last consider the multimedia network environment, where the VBR traffic exists in the network in addition to the ABR/UBR traffic. By this, we investigate an applicability of the above observations to a more generic model. Through simulation experiments, we find that the similar results can be obtained, but it is also shown that parameters of the rate-based congestion control must be chosen carefully by taking into account the existence of VBR traffic. For this, we discuss the method to determine the appropriate control parameters.

This paper compares three cell transfer quality control schemes, namely HPS, DAS and ORS, which integrate a preventive congestion control and a reactive congestion control in ATM switch. Simulation results showed that ORS achieves the largest network utilization, and HPS provides enough large throughput compared with DAS only when many VBR connections are multiplexed.

In this paper, algorithms for resource allocation in an ATM node that serves heterogeneous traffic sources subject to varying Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are proposed. The node can be either a switch port or a multiplexer. Each connection is first individually treated as logical queue. Quick and efficient algorithms allocating service rate and buffer space to each connection based on traffic characteristics and QoS requirement are developed. In order to improve link and buffer utilization, the aggregate traffic is next replaced by an appropriately parameterized new traffic source that still preserves the key characteristics of the aggregate traffic. The most stringest QoS requirement among all connections is selected to be the QoS target of the new traffic source to assure that QoS of each individual connection is satisfied. Resource allocation for the aggregate traffic is determined based on the traffic parameters and QoS target of the new source. Each individually determined service rate and buffer space can be used in cell transmission scheduling and selective cell discarding. In other words, resource allocation together with two related side problems: cell transmission and cell discarding, are treated in this paper in an integrated and efficient manner. The resource allocation algorithms proposed in this paper can also be used to support Call Admission Control (CAC) in ATM networks.

A leaky-bucket-with-gate algorithm is proposed to control connection-setup congestion in telecommunication networks providing multimedia services, in place of the call-gapping algorithm used in telephone networks. Multimedia services may use more than one connection simultaneously, while standard telephone services use only one connection at a time. A set of connections used to construct a multimedia service is called a correlated connection group, and the setup requests of such a group form correlated request group. A correlated request group is assumed to be accepted into the network only when all the connection-setup requests for the group are accepted. In this paper, the proposed leaky-bucket-with-gate algorithm, a pure leaky-bucket algorithm, and a call-gapping algorithm are evaluated by simulating traffic with a mix of correlated and uncorrelated connection-setup requests, which models setup requests for video conferencing and telephone services. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm accepts correlated request groups more efficiently than the pure leaky-bucket and call-gapping algorithms under the simulated traffic conditions, except when the interarrival time in a correlated request group is longer than the acceptance interval. We also present queueing analysis for determining the control parameters in the proposed algorithm. Implementation of this algorithm will facilitate the handling of both setup request traffic for correlated connection groups and for uncorrelated connections in multimedia networks.

Narrow-band ISDN services may experience nonstationary traffic conditions. Therefore, switch design should take account of these conditions. We propose new performance measures for switching systems and describe a traffic model, which is a mixture of stationary Poissonian traffic and momentarily focused traffic. On the basis of this model, performance measures are determined so as to satisfy grade of service requirements that are in effect during some short interval after the momentarily focused traffic enters the system. We also propose an overload control scheme that uses these new performance measures. Finally, we show practical and numerical examples for the performance measures and overload control scheme.

One of the functions that should be provided in ATM LANs is multicast communication. For multicast communication on ATM LANs, the architecture of switch fabric and protocols for signaling have been studied. However, when data communication using a multicast connection such as LAN emulation service is provided, ABR service on a multicast connection (Multicast ABR) is also required. ABR service has been actively discussed in the ATM forum. Unfortunately, the study on flow control mechanism for Multicast ABR is not enough. This paper discusses the suitable flow control mechanism for Multicast ABR and shows its performance.

Both available bit rate (ABR) service and unspecified bit rate (UBR) service with early packet discard (EPD) schemes have been considered for supporting data applications in ATM networks. Since transmission control protocol (TCP) is perhaps the most widely used transport layer protocol in existing data networks, the performance of TCP over ATM using ABR service and UBR service with EPD schemes is of great interest to ATM equipment vendors and service providers. In this paper, we present a simulation study of this interesting issue in a LAN environment using some benchmark network configurations proposed in the ATM Forum. Our simulation results show the following: (1) With UBR service and EPD schemes, TCP suffers significant performance degradation in terms of fairness and requires relatively large switch buffer even with a small number of active virtual connections over a LAN configuration, and (2) for the same set of network configurations and with ABR service using explicit rate feedback schemes, TCP achieves good performance in terms of fairness and link utilization, and requires relatively small switch buffer.

Rate-based congestion control is a promising scheme as data transfer service in ATM networks, and has been standardized in the ATM Forum. To migrate the existing upper layer protocols to ATM networks, however, further investigation is necessary. In particular, when ABR service class is applied to TCP (Transmission Control Protocol), duality of congestion control schemes in different protocol layers, i.e., conventional window-based congestion control in the Transport layer and ratebased congestion control in the ATM layer, may have a unexpected influence on performance. As an alternative approach for supporting TCP protocol, EPD (Early Packet Discard) has been recently proposed, which adds the function to the UBR (Unspecified Bit Rate) service. It does not have a "duality problem" since EPD only discards cells selectively to improve packet-level performance. In this paper, we exhibit performance of TCP protocol over ATM networks by using a simulation technique. We first compare rate-based control of ABR service and EPD applied to UBR service, and show that rate-control achieves better fairness and higher throughput in most circumstances. However, rate-based control requires careful tuning of control parameters to obtain its effectiveness and a duality problem leads to unexpected degradation of TCP-level performance. By the rate-based congestion control, temporal congestion at the switch is quickly relieved by the rate down of the source terminals. However, our simulation explores that if the parameter set of the rate-based congestion control is not appropriately used, the congestion is also recognized at TCP due to packet drops and TCP unnecessarily throttles its window size. To avoid this sort of the problem, we develop the appropriate parameter set suitable to TCP on ABR service, and point out that some modification of TCP may be necessary for further performance improvement.

Recently, ABR has been attracting attention as a new service category of ATM, and the methodology to realize ABR is being actively discussed in the ATM Forum. ABR is expected to become a suitable class for supporting LAN services on ATM networks. To this end, a technical foundation must be established in which bandwidth is effectively utilized and quality is guaranteed. In order for ABR to use a portion of the bandwidth that is not used by high-priority classes (CBR, VBR), it is necessary to appropriately estimate the unused portion of the bandwidth. Due to the fact that the unused portion of the bandwidth in ATM networks fluctuates, such fluctuations must be taken into account. This paper describes ABR connection admission control and design of the congestion detecting point in an ABR buffer using Allan variance of the unused portion of the bandwidth.

A novel reactive congestion control scheme based on Dynamic UPC/NPC (Usage/Network Parameter Control) in ATM networks is proposed. In this scheme, policing parameters at the UPC/NPC are dynamically modified in response to the reception of RM (Resource Management) cells. In a congested state, traffic volume submitted to the network is regulated by Dynamic UPC/NPC, while providing negotiated QoS (Quality of Service) for each ATM connection. When end-stations (or edge-entities between network segments) operate according to ER-based (Explicit Rate based) behavior, a UPC/NPC function will indicate (send) an ER value toward each source end-station using backward RM cells. In this case, the policing parameter at the UPC/NPC should take the same value as the ER value. When end-stations (or edge-entities) operate according to EFCI-based (Explicit Forward Congestion Indication based) behavior, the modified policing parameter at the UPC/NPC point must be harmonized with the modified cell transmission rate at the source end-stations (or at the edge-entities). In order to improve the control performance for the long distance connections, backward RM cells will be generated by the NPC function (UPC function will be optional) at the egress of a congested network in response to the reception of EFCI marked cells (or forward RM cells) as a proxy destination end-station, and they will be sent back toward the UPC/NPC function at the ingress of the network. As a result, the proposed control scheme enables the network to recover from the congested state securely and provide the negotiated service quality, even if cooperation of (rate-based) flow control at each source end-station (and at edge-entities between network segments) is not expected.

In this paper we propose a congestion control method for interconnecting connectionless MANs with ATM networks which works at the gateway of DQDB. Since connectionless traffic belong to loss sensitive data, they should experience small cell loss rate. Due to the function of congestion control in the gateway, we can prevent the network from overload which not only introduces serious cell loss at remote destination gateway but also lots of undesirable retransmissions and time delay in the ATM network. It neither needs to modify the slot format of DQDB nor to increase the overhead so the implementation is simple and cost effective. Performance results are also provided to verify the effectiveness.