Analysing multimedia traffic in real-time ATM networks

We present a method for providing response-time guarantees for multimedia traffic in Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks. The method extends our Response-Time Analysis (RTA) for ATM networks to better capture the behaviour of MPEG-type multimedia traffic. RTA is intended for admission control of hard real-time traffic, i.e., it determines if a new connection can be admitted without violating the timing requirements of the new as well as any already admitted connection. We evaluate the extended RTA by comparing it with our original RTA, which does not consider the specific traffic patterns of MPEG-type multimedia traffic. In addition, we show how Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ) and Calculus for Network Delays (CND) can be adopted to MPEG-type multimedia traffic, and compare the thus obtained analysis with our extended RTA. Evaluations indicate that our new method yields both higher achievable network utilisation and shorter analysis times compared to the original RTA, and higher achievable network utilisation compared to both the adapted WFQ and CND.