Optimized ATM virtual path bandwidth management under fairness constraints

The concept of virtual paths decouples the logical network structure of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks from the physical network topology. Adapting the bandwidth of the virtual paths leads to a highly flexible network, that is able to cope with traffic variations and network failures. The objective of the adaption is to maximize the weighted carried traffic in the network through a centralized optimization of the virtual path bandwidths. A new method is presented that leads to an optimized management of the network resources and provides fairness between different node pairs. The method considers arbitrary services and includes statistical multiplexing of variable bit rate (VBR) traffic. At the call level we use a connection admission control algorithm which calculates an equivalent cell rate, for a VBR connection.