On the Performance of Stream-based, Class-based Time-aware Shaping and Frame Preemption in TSN

Time-sensitive Networking (TSN) is an evolving group of IEEE standards for deterministic real-time communication making standard Ethernet technology applicable to safety-critical application domains such as manufacturing or automotive systems. TSN includes several mechanisms influencing the timely forwarding of traffic, in particular, a time-triggered scheduling mechanism called time-aware shaper (TAS) and frame preemption to reduce the blocking time of high-priority traffic by low-priority traffic. Although these mechanisms have been standardized and products implementing them begin to enter the market, it is still hard for practitioners to select and apply suitable mechanisms fitting the problem at hand. For instance, TAS schedules can be calculated for individual streams or classes of traffic, and frame preemption with strict priority scheduling (w/o TAS) might seem to be an option in networks with extremely high data rates. In this paper, we make a first step towards assisting practitioners in making an informed decision when choosing between stream-based TAS, class-based TAS, and frame preemption by comparing these mechanisms in selected scenarios using our TSN network simulation tool NeSTiNg. Moreover, to facilitate the application of class-based TAS, we derive a formula for calculating class-based TAS configuration.