Threshold-based filtering buffer management scheme in a shared buffer packet switch

In this paper, an efficient threshold-based filtering (TF) buffer management scheme is proposed. The TF is capable of minimizing the overall loss performance and improving the fairness of buffer usage in a shared buffer packet switch. The TF consists of two mechanisms. One mechanism is to classify the output ports as active or inactive by comparing their queue lengths with a dedicated buffer allocation factor. The other mechanism is to filter the arrival packets of inactive output ports when the total queue length exceeds a threshold value. A theoretical queuing model of TF is formulated and resolved for the overall packet loss probability. Computer simulations are used to compare the overall loss performance of TF, dynamic threshold (DT), static threshold (ST) and pushout (PO). We find that TF scheme is more robust against dynamic traffic variations than DT and ST. Also, although the overall loss performance between TF and PO are close to each other, the implementation of TF is much simpler than the PO.