A fair and cost-effective service mechanism for cell scheduling in ATM networks

In order to schedule cells fairly and cost-effectively in ATM networks, this paper develops a new type of fair service referred to as fair-base-weighted round robin (FWRR). It combines well the fairness of an ideal fair service with the simplicity of a typical round robin (RR) service such that it can offer fair service to all connections over each "fair cycle", with flexible operations and low expense close to that of a typical RR. We show that FWRR possesses fairness over each of fair cycles. Also, we analyze its worst-case fairness, upper bound of cell delay, and complexity. Numerical results obtained from simulation further support the analysis, with two main conclusions that FWRR can not only offer better fairness but present lower cell delay bound to higher-speed connections than carry-over round robin.