Performance enhancements & analysis in next generation Resilient Packet Ring networks

In multi-service broadband networks, rings are the dominant topology. Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) has emerged as a key technology and a recent IEEE standard in delivering transport convergence. Nonetheless, the current standard has several drawbacks such as: slow convergence, severe oscillation, Class of Service (CoS) end-to-end differentiation and dual-ring utilization. We summarize how recent packet ring research partially addresses these drawbacks. We address the remaining items by introducing a new technique which takes into account the total bandwidth available on both ringlets, and allocate flow bandwidth based on availability, cost and traffic prioritization. We derive the performance analysis and packet queueing delay for our technique, and compare the results to recent RPR research. Our simulation and results demonstrate an increase in utilization and service fulfillment, with an acceptable increase in packet delay. The outcome of our work will be used to assist system designers and service provider network planners with their development & network deployments.