Th. Antonakopoulos, J. Koutsonikos, V. Pallios and V. Makios:

Simulation Analysis of Access Protocol Storage Requirements in a Local Area Network Node Environment

The 8th IASTED International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control, Grindelwald, Switzerland, Febr. 1989, pp. 397-401.

Abstract:  Nodal storage limitations in a store-and-forward computer network lead to blocking; moreover in high-speed LANs where time restrictions are critical, they resuit in degradation of network performance due to loss or retransmission of blocked packets. In this work we consider the Input/Output Packet Buffer (I/O PB) at the interface between the Medium Access Control (MAC) unit, responsible for the access protocol, and the Bursty Data Module (BDM), responsible for the processing of higher layer protocols. The arrival of packets to the buffer from the MAC follows an interrupted procedure with exponential distribution for the busy and idle times. The arrival interruptions originate from the Access Protocol used for a high speed (144 Mb/s) Integrated Services LAN. Both busy and idle times are expressed in clock time periods with reference to the network speed. The server which represents the interface between the I/O PB and the BDM is also available in interrupt form to idle times. The measured performance for the delay contribution and the buffer size through simulation analysis is also presented in this paper. Finally, a comparison between the implementation and the simulation is carried out allowing the optimum choice of the buffer design parameters through a trade off between the required performance and the hardware implementation.

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