Interoperability of EFCI and ERICA ATM switches for ABR services with VS/VD enhancements

To improve network bandwidth utilization, the asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) forum has standardized available bit rate (ABR) service which requires a number of parameters to be negotiated during connection setup. MCR is the minimum cell rate guaranteed by the network and can be used to provide an acceptable quality of service for applications. In this study, explicit forward congestion indication (EFCI) and explicit rate indication for congestion avoidance (ERICA) switches were adopted in a current transitional ATM network. First, we transfer trac with ABR service to realize the interoperability of EFCI and ERICA switches. Second, we implemented the virtual source/virtual destination (VS/VD) feature into a homo or heterogeneous EFCI and ERICA switch environment in order to observe the performance. From the simulation results, a smaller queue length was obtained after the VS/VD was introduced into the EFCI and ERICA switches. The high link data transfer utilization with ABR service was also obtained.