Design and evaluation of an efficient traffic control scheme for integrated voice,video, and data over asynchronous transfer mode networks: Explicit allowed rate algorithm

Asychronous transfer mode (ATM) networks are high‐speed networks with guaranteed quality of service. The main cause of congestion in ATM networks is over utilization of physical bandwidth. Unlike constant bit‐rate (CBR) traffic, the bandwidth reserved by variable bit‐rate (VBR) traffic is not fully utilized at all instances. Hence, this unused bandwidth is allocated to available bit‐rate (ABR) traffic. As the bandwidth used by VBR traffic changes, available bandwidth for ABR traffic varies; i.e., available bandwidth for ABR traffic is inversely proportional to the bandwidth used by the VBR traffic. Based on this fact, a rate‐based congestion control algorithm, Explicit Allowed Rate Algorithm (EARA), is presented in this paper. EARA is compared with Proportional Rate Control Algorithm (PRCA) and Explicit Rate Indication Congestion Avoidance Algorithm (ERICA), in both LAN and WAN environments. Simulations of all three algorithms are conducted under both congestion and fairness configurations with simultaneous generation of CBR, rt‐VBR, nrt‐VBR and ABR traffic. The results show that, with very small over‐head on the switch, EARA significantly decreases the required buffer space and improves the network throughput. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.