Two Simulation Tools for Testing ATM Resource Allocation Strategies

Abstract

Two event-driven simulation tools aimed at testing access control and routing mechanisms in an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) environment are presented. The first one is dedicated to the behavioural description of an ATM Virtual Circuit (VC) switch. The purpose is to test resource allocation and Call Admission Control (CAC) strategies, so only the relevant events for this objective are considered and some important functions (e.g., the switching element) for a complete description of an ATM switch are not explicitly modeled. The second simulator has been designed to test routing strategies for an ATM network. In such a case, a higher level of abstraction than in the previous one is necessary and, again, only the meaningful events to the aim are taken into account. Some resource allocation, CAC, and routing schemes are also reported, along with the description of the simulation tools. Several simulation results are discussed, in order to assess their performance.