Design and analysis of RT-Ring: a protocol for supporting real-time communications

Real-time applications, such as process control signals, multimedia transmission, are more and more deployed in current networks. These applications produce a type of traffic with stringent timing requirements whose transmission is critical as it has to be completed within its deadline. This transmission can be performed only if the communication system uses protocols that support real-time traffic transmissions. In this paper we propose a new real-time protocol, called RT-Ring, able to support transmissions of both realtime and generic traffic over a ring network. RT-Ring provides both network guarantees and high network resource utilization, while ensuring the compatibility with the emerging Differentiated Service Architecture. Network guarantees are fully proved and high network utilization is highlighted by a comparison study with the FDDI protocol. This comparison shows that RT-Ring network capacities are greater than the corresponding FDDI capacities. 2. National Research Council, CNUCE Institute, Via V.Alfieri 1, 56010 Ghezzano, Pisa Italy. 3. Department of Computer Science. University of Bologna, Mura Anteo Zamboni 7 40127 Bologna, Italy.