Available bit rate flow control for service allocation in a packet network

Abstract

A packet network employs flow control providing assigned rates to sessions in accordance with a general max-min (GMM) rate allocation. The GMM rate allocation accounts for the minimum cell rate and peak cell rate requirements for each session. For one case, a centralized flow control algorithm is employed that sorts sessions based on increasing minimum cell rate. The centralized flow control algorithm employs an iterative process of increasing the rate of the smallest rate session and adding sessions to the process when the smallest rate session equals the next higher rate session. The rates are increased until the rate either reaches the peak cell rate of the session or the link saturates. For a second case, a distributed flow control algorithm is employed with a distributed protocol within the network to allocate capacity of network links to sessions. For the distributed flow control algorithm, an iterative process of rate allocation uses a modified version of the Consistent Marking method. In the modified version of the Consistent Marking method, a saturated link only marks those sessions reaching a corresponding GMM-bottleneck link rate on links elsewhere in the network. The session traversing its own GMM-bottleneck link is not marked.