Dynamic rate-based control algorithm for ABR service in ATM networks

A distributed explicit-rate (ER) capacity allocation algorithm for available-bit rate (ABR) services in ATM networks is presented. The algorithm uses a measurement-based approach to achieve max-min bandwidth fairness and provides priority service mechanisms for heterogeneous traffic, e.g., constant-bit rate (CBR), variable-bit rate (VBR), ABR, etc. Explicit handling for minimum cell rate (MCR) guarantees for the ABR class is also performed. It is proposed that the sources measure their average rates to properly handle variability and to improve bandwidth utilization. Simulation results are presented for various network scenarios and show that the proposed scheme adapts well to network dynamics and converges to max-min fairness.