Performance Evaluation of ATM Switching Systems

This paper investigates performance evaluation of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching systems: Private Branch Exchanges (PBX), switches and cross-connects. The performance evaluation of ATM switching systems is not as straightforward as one might expect. This is due to the fact that performance can be seen from different angles. The measurements presented in this paper include: throughput, switching delay, switching delay variation, buffer size, accuracy of the Usage Parameter Control (UPC) procedure and cell discarding under overload situation. These properties have been evaluated through a series of measurements. The measurements are quite general although they have been carried out only against Fore System’s ASX-200 PBX. The main value of this study is in comparison of different measurement techniques rather than in the actual results. The results depend on the environment but the techniques are valid in general.