Performance analysis of an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switch involves modelling the input traffic source, the switching mechanism and the cell departure process. An important issue, which determines the overall accuracy in performance evaluation of the switch, is the use of an appropriate probabilistic model to describe the cell departure process. Until now, little work has been done in the literature on comparing models of the cell departure process for studying the performance of an ATM switch. This paper compares and assesses the accuracy of several models, including a new one proposed by us, called the 'urn model'. These models are put under test in a performance evaluation of a shared buffer ATM switch, by using a discrete-time Markov chain. The numerical results are compared with the simulation and show that the urn model is a good compromise between accuracy and efficiency. This finding is significant because it helps to speed up convergence of an analytical model of a large network while providing satisfactory accuracy. † This is referred to as a shared memory-type non-blocking switch, with all input and output ports being able to access a shared memory module (or shared buffer) at a maximum speed of reading or writing b cells in a clock cycle.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.