Traffic Engineering (TE) is important for improving QoS in forwarding paths by efficient use of network resources. In fact, MPLS allows several detour paths to be (pre-)established for some source-destination pair as well as its primary path of minimum hops. Thus, we focus on a two-phase path management scheme using these two kinds of paths. In the first phase, each primary path is allocated to a flow on a specific source-destination pair if the path is not congested, i.e., if its utilization is less than some predetermined threshold; otherwise, as the second phase, one of the detour paths is allocated randomly if the path is available. Therefore, in this paper, we analytically evaluate this path management scheme by extending the M/M/c/c queueing system, and through some numerical results we investigate the impact of a threshold on the flow-blocking probability. Through some numerical results, we discuss the adequacy of the path management scheme for MPLS-TE.

Many ATM switching modules with high performance have been proposed and analyzed. A development of a large scale ATM switching system (e.g., used as a central switch) is the key to realization of the broadband ISDN. However, the dimension of ATM switching ICs is limited by the technological and physical constraints on VLSI. A multistage switching configuration is one of the promising configurations for a large scale ATM switch. In this paper, we treat a 3-stage switching configuration with no internal bufferes; i.e., bufferless switches are employed at the first and second stages, and output buffered switches at the third stage. A short-term cell loss probability is analyzed in order to examine the influence of bursty traffic on performance of the bufferless switch used at the first two stages. Furthermore, we propose a 4-stage switching configuration with traffic distributors added at the first stage. This switch provides more paths between a pair of input and output ports than the 3-stage switching configuration mentioned above. A few schemes to distribute cells are compared. It is shown that the distributor successfully reduces the deterioration of cell loss probability due to bursty traffic by splitting incoming cells into several switching modules.

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.

An immense number of LAN switches are currently in use worldwide. Therefore, methods that can reduce the energy consumption of these devices are of great practical interest. A simple way to save power in LAN switches is to switch the interfaces to sleep mode when no packets are buffered and to keep the interfaces in active mode while there are packets to be transmitted. Although this would appear to be the most effective energy saving scheme, mode switching gives rise to in-rush current, which can cause electrical damage to devices. This problem arises from excessive mode switching, which should be avoided. Thus, the main objective is to develop a method by which to reduce the number of mode switchings that result in short-duration sleep modes because these switchings do not contribute greatly to energy efficiency but can damage the device. To this end, a method is adopted whereby the interface is kept in active mode for an "extra" period of time after all packets have been flushed from the buffer. This period is the "extra active period (EAP)" and this scheme protects the device at the expense of energy saving efficiency. In this paper, this scheme is evaluated analytically in terms of its power reduction ratio and frequency of mode changes by modifying the M/M/1 and IPP/M/1 queuing models. The numerical results show how the duration of the extra active period degrades the energy saving performance while reducing the number of mode changes. We analytically show an exact trade-off between the power reduction ratio and the average number of turn-ons in the EAP model with Poisson packet arrival. Furthermore, we extend the scheme to determine the EAP dynamically and adaptively depending on the short-term utilization of the interface and demonstrate the effectiveness of the extended scheme by simulation. The newly developed scheme will enable LAN switches to be designed with energy savings in mind without exceeding the constraints of the device.

W-CDMA (Wideband-CDMA) is expected to play a significant role in the radio access technology of third-generation mobile telecommunication systems. In second-generation systems, voice traffic from each user has been transmitted mainly via the dedicated transport (radio) channel. In addition, the third-generation systems will efficiently accommodate data traffic based on packet transmission in the shared common transport channel. Therefore, data traffic can be transmitted via one of two types of data channels: i.e., dedicated channels or common channels. However, the channel selecting/switching scheme has not been standardized; thus, system architectures and algorithms of channel-switching schemes in the RNC (Radio Network Controller) are dependent on its vendors, and network operators must determine the parameter settings related to channel selection. In this paper, we will deal with aspects of the architecture in detail, and propose possible algorithms for channel selecting/switching for fundamental reference systems which meet the specifications of the RNC. We will then evaluate our algorithms by means of simulations, and discuss the impact of parameter settings on performance, in terms of packet loss probability and utilization of dedicated channels.

In QoS networks, routing algorithms for QoS traffic have to provide the transmission path satisfying its QoS requirement while achieving high utilization of network resources. Therefore, server-based QoS routing algorithms would be more effective than distributed routing ones which are very common on the Internet. Furthermore, we believe that rerouting function enhances the advantage of their algorithms in which an already accepted flow with established path is replaced on some other path in order to accept newly arriving transmission request if it can not be accepted without doing so. Thus in this paper, we will propose a rerouting algorithm with the server-based QoS routing and evaluate its performance in terms of the blocking probability by computer simulation. In addition, we will investigate the impact of the amount of traffic with high-priority on the performance in some network topologies. Through some simulation results, we also discuss some issues arising in improving the effectiveness of rerouting.

Recent improvements in the performance of end-computers and networks have made it feasible to construct a grid system over the Internet. A grid environment consists of many computers, each having a set of components and a distinct performance. These computers are shared among many users and managed in a distributed manner. Thus, it is important to focus on a situation in which the computers are used unevenly due to decentralized management by different task schedulers. In this study, which is a preliminary investigation of the performance of task allocation schemes employed in a decentralized environment, the average execution time of a long-lived task is analytically derived using the M/G/1-PS queue. Furthermore, assuming a more realistic condition, we evaluate the performance of some task allocation schemes adopted in the analysis, and clarify which scheme is applicable to a realistic grid environment.

As the Internet grows, various types of traffic, such as voice, video and data, are transmitted. Therefore, the Internet should provide the Quality of Service (QoS) required by each type of traffic as well as end-to-end connectivity, and routing decisions should be based on the utilization of links/routers and/or the application types of traffic. This kind of routing is called Traffic Engineering (TE), and its objective is to improve such performance factors as flow loss probability for users and the utilization of links for networks, simultaneously. Some studies claim that the Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) technique can easily implement TE. So far, some experimental results show that TE is effective on a MPLS network; however, its performance has not been theoretically and quantitatively analyzed. Thus, in this paper, we will investigate the basic and preliminary performance of MPLS networks with TE by analyzing flow loss probability and Smoothness index of link utilization in the queueing system.

The layer3 switch enables us to fast transmit IP datagrams using the cut-through technique. The current layer3 router would become bottleneck in terms of delay performance as the amount of traffic injected into high speed networks gets relatively large. Thus, the layer3 switch should be an important element constructing the next generation Internet backbone. In this paper, we analyze the cut-through rate, the datagram waiting time and the mis-ordered rate of a layer3 switch in case of flow-driven connection setup. In the analysis, by using 3-state Markov modulated Bernoulli process (MMBP), we model the arrival process of IP flow and IP datagram from each source. Furthermore, we investigate impacts of the arrival rate and the average datagram length on the performance.

LSR (Label Switching Router)s in MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) networks map arriving IP flows into some labels on Layer 2 switching fabric and establish LSP (Label Switching Path)s. By using LSPs, LSRs not only transmit IP datagrams fast by cut-through mechanism, but also solve traffic engineering issue to optimize the delay of some IP datagram flows. So far, we have analyzed the performance of LSR focusing only on the maximum number of LSPs which can be set on Layer 2. In this paper, we will also consider the bandwidth allocated to each LSP and analyze the IP datagram transmission delay and the cut-through rate of LSR. We suppose the label mapping method as the data-driven scheme in the analytical model, so that the physical bandwidth of LSR is shared by both the default LSP for hop-by-hop transmission and the cut-through LSPs. Thus, we will investigate the impact of the bandwidth allocation among these LSPs on the performance.

As the Internet role changes from the experimental environment to the social infrastructure, end-to-end quality for data transfer of various types of traffic has been required as well as its connectivity. So we should precisely measure some performance such as packet loss probability and delay at routers on some source-destination path. By using so-called passive measurement technique, we can get the queue length distribution from some routers individually and estimate the end-to-end transmission delay. However, there may be some correlation between queue lengths of two or more routers packets go through in sequence, which would lead to inaccurate estimation of end-to-end delay performance. Thus in this paper, we model two tandem routers as queueing system, and analyze the queue length distributions and their correlation. Through some numerical results, we will investigate the impact of traffic parameters on the degree of correlation and how it affects the estimation of delay performance.