Adaptive capacity management of virtual path networks

In a distributed telecommunication network, a logical system of virtual paths (VPs) can be advantageously built up over the physical network in order to simplify traffic control, call acceptance and resource management process. In order to improve the resource utilization, even in the case of variable traffic, a management system capable of allocating capacities to the VPs in a adaptive way can be designed. Such a system should be designed properly, balancing quality of service (QoS) among the traffic and improving resource utilisation, still maintaining monitoring and control effort at an acceptable level. In the paper, we address this situation and propose a particular system with a distributed architecture, which operates mostly at the link level, monitoring just the VP current loads and leading to a capacity saving of 15-60%.