Quantitative Evaluation of Scalability in Broadband Intelligent Networks

Abstract

Scalability is the ability of a network to maintain the quality of service while increasing certain parameters relating to the size of the network, such as the number of users, the number of network nodes, the number of services provided, geographical spread, etc. In the design of a B-IN signalling systl>m, network scalability is an important issue that must be taken into account. In this paper we use simulation to investigate scalability issues related to a Broadband Intelligent Network (B-IN), such as that being considered in the ACTS project INSIGNIA. In particular, we study the impact of processor speed and configuration (in B-IN physical entities) on signalling performance. As signalling performance measures we consider the mean call setup delay of a B-IN service request and the network throughput. For Broadband Virtual Private Network (B-VPN) service, we perform scalability experiments by increasing some of the network parameters such as the number of users and the number of nodes.