Analysis of an ATM buffer with self-similar ("fractal") input traffic

As ATM high-speed, cell-relay networks will most likely first make their impact as backbones interconnecting enterprise networks consisting of Ethernet and other LANs, their proper design and control is crucial. Recent studies of high quality, high resolution traffic measurements in Bellcore Ethernets have revealed that this aggregate Ethernet traffic is self-similar ("fractal") in nature, quite different in "burstiness" features from traffic considered and studied up to now. This paper presents an analytical study of an ATM buffer driven with self-similar traffic. The probability of buffer occupancy is obtained. It is shown that this probability decreases with the buffer size not exponentially, as in traditionally Markovian traffic models, but algebraically.