A simulation study on traffic aggregation in multi-service networks

Several different strategies for traffic aggregation in enterprise networks formed by LANs that are interconnected via a WAN are compared. We discuss on the one hand the gain in time and space requirements in the WAN dependent on the number of aggregates and on the other hand the experienced waiting time as an important measure of QoS for real-time applications. Our simulation results show that not only the need of resources diminishes if audio and video sources are grouped in one aggregate, but also the waiting time improves significantly.