Performance Characterizations of Traffic Monitoring, and Associated Control, Mechanisms for Broadband "Packet" Networks

time of the connection set-up, and, depending on the outcome of such a comparison, for the network to take appropriate control actions. This paper addresses a number of performance issues associated with real-time traffic-monitoring schemes, as will likely be used in broadband "packettransport-based" networks such as Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN) with Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). The issues of: an appropriate performance framework for traffic-monitoring scheme comparisons; appropriate control actions based on traffic-monitoring; and how traffic parameters (that could enter strongly into "service contracts" between the network and users) should best be specified are treated in an overview summary. Some of the more commonly suggested traffic-monitoring schemes are described, and the leaky-bucket scheme is analyzed. Also, a relationship between traffic peakedness and traffic-monitoring schemes is introduced.