Performance & packet traffic dynamics of Packet Switching Network model

Abstract

Dynamics of packet traffic in data communication networks can be complex and often not well understood. Understanding of these complex dynamics is important for their control, prediction purposes and for the data networks design. The engineering community has described wired data networks architectures and studied them by means of a layered, hierarchical abstraction called ISO OSI (International Standard Organization Open System Interconnect) Reference Model. The Network Layer of the ISO OSI Reference Model is responsible for routing packets across the network from their sources to their destinations and for control of congestion in data networks. Using an abstraction of the Network Layer that we developed, we investigate packet traffic dynamics in our data network models of data communication networks of packet switching type, in particular near the phase transition point from free flow to congestion. We explore how these dynamics and network performance indicators are affected by network connection topology and routing algorithms. We consider static and adaptive routing algorithms. PSN model time is discrete and we observe its state at the discrete time points k=0, 1, 2, …, T, where T is the final simulation time. At time k=0, the set-up of PSN model is initialised with empty queues and the routing tables are computed.