A Modeling Technique for Media Access Protocol Evaluation

Abstract This paper presents a modeling technique for performance evaluation of media access protocols based on semi-markovmodels. The proposed techniqueprovides accurate performance prediction while also preserving model flexibility. General traffic generation and resource holding time distributions are supported with this approach. The model is independent of the system size and is linearly scalable to an arbitrary transmitter queue capacity. The analytic technique is introduced through the study of two simple media access protocols. The technique is then applied to a multi-channel photonic environment to evaluate protocol performance. The analytic technique is validated through extensive discrete-event simulation.