Statistical multiplexing and buffer sharing in multimedia high-speed networks: a frequency domain perspective

An essential feature of the ATM-based solution for BISDN is its potential to use the same set of network resources to support a vast variety of user services. We study the effectiveness of statistical multiplexing and buffer sharing under the multimedia high-speed networking environment. We focus on the impact of frequency domain source characteristics on dynamic resource-sharing. By applying a novel statistical matching technique, we can, for the first time, investigate the multiplexing performance of a wide-range of realistic traffic sources using sophisticated traffic models. It has been shown that the effectiveness of statistical multiplexing and buffer sharing highly depends on the frequency domain characteristics of the traffic as well as the corresponding QoS requirements. For practical "low-frequency" sources, e.g. VBR-video streams and LAN-to-LAN traffic, significant savings in bandwidth and buffer-space can be achieved via resource sharing under practical loss and delay constraints. These findings re-illustrate the important role of traffic characteristics in the design/selection of network control strategies. The trade-offs among different design alternatives (e.g. multiplexing vs. buffering) and the implications on some control schemes, e.g. traffic shaping/input-rate control, are also discussed.