On-line Bandwidth and Buffer Allocation for ATM

Abstract

We propose a novel on-line algorithm for shared Bandwidth and Buffer Allocation (BABA) in ATM networks. The objective of the BABA algorithm is to guarantee users' Quality of Service (QoS), while saving as much bandwidth and buffer space as possible to meet the needs of other potential network users. This algorithm proceeds incrementally on each link of a path, when a new user arrives to the network-or when a user terminates a connection. The algorithm uses gradient descent of a cost function which describes the "closest" available allocation for a given loss probability bound. BABA only requires simple algebraic operations, making it practical for fast on-line control. Numerical and simulation results show that BABA compares very favorably with currently proposed resource allocation policies.