Active resource control and management techniques for programmable ATM switches

With the increased demand on quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees, the methods used to design network elements are changing. Service models such as integrated services (IntServ), differentiated services (DiffServ), asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) service classes or multi protocol label switching (MPLS) resulted in research activities dealing with network QoS requirements. However, protocols based on many of these service models have limited implementations. Some of the reasons of these limitations are inadequate network interfaces and node services. With the development of programmable and active networks, it is possible to implement protocols and node service components that better meet the specifications of service models. This paper presents active resource control and management techniques for the realization of QoS guarantees on ATM networks. Using programmable ATM switch interfaces, we propose a set of mechanisms for the control and management of accesses to resources available at an ATM switch. The principal objective of the proposed mechanisms is to enable the implementation of flexible node and network service supports with QoS requirements, while maintaining the consistency and the integrity of resources available at nodes.