Design and analysis of ATM networks with fluid flow sources

Most literature concerned with the statistical multiplexing performance in ATM networks considers cell loss rate, cell delay and delay jitter as performance measures. Some research on the relation of cell loss and call blocking when sources are represented as on/off fluid flow for the purpose of call admission has also appeared. However, buffering is ignored and a bufferless multiplexer is assumed. In this paper, it is shown that under certain (realistic) conditions, the call blocking in a buffered ATM multiplexer behaves as an Erlang-B loss system. The system buffer is assumed to be of infinite storage and the transmission rate of the link (C) is assumed to be finite. Using past results on probability of cell loss and properties of nearly completely decomposable Markov chains, the aggregate system cell loss when in different states is determined. It is shown that call blocking performance for a given system capacity (or equivalently for a total probability of cell loss) is independent of the individual source parameters. These results are helpful in determining link capacity, call admission policies, network routing design, and delay evaluation of ATM networks. An inverse problem is also stated.