Survey: Flow control in ATM networks: a survey

  • Authors:
  • S. Kamolphiwong;A. E. Karbowiak;H. Mehrpour

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Communications, School of Electrical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;Department of Communications, School of Electrical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;Department of Communications, School of Electrical Engineering, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia

  • Venue:
  • Computer Communications
  • Year:
  • 1998

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Abstract

In this paper, we present results of a study of flow control in ATM networks. Two classes of flow control are described: preventive and reactive. A preventive control, which uses a static resources allocation, seems inadequate to handle rough traffic in high speed networks. On the other hand, the reactive control schemes, which employ a closed-loop feedback mechanism, seem more attractive than the preventive control schemes, especially in ATM networks. Four ATM service categories are provided to serve a variety of users. To enable each service class to function effectively two closed-loop flow control mechanisms: rate-based and credit-based, have been introduced for ATM networks. Rate-based flow control schemes use the rate of traffic flowing from the source to control the transmission rate. In this paper, a number of variants of rate-based schemes are described and analysed. Credit-based schemes use window flow control where a traffic source is allowed to transmit data only when there is available buffer space in the downstream node. In this paper, a number of credit-based schemes are also described and analysed.