A low cost approximation for a controlled load service in a bridged/switched LAN environment

This paper reports the design and the implementation results of a Controlled Load service in a bridged/switched Local Area Network (LAN). In contrast to other approaches, the service was built based on traffic aggregation and simple two level Static Priority scheduling within LAN switches. All complex control functions such as the per-flow packet classification, policing and traffic reshaping are only performed within end-nodes (hosts or routers) of the LAN. Admission Control is used to restrict the access to the new service. Measurement results received in a bridged test network exhibit low average end-to-end delay characteristics and no packet loss despite: 1) the simplicity of the traffic control implemented in our LAN switches, 2) a worst-case network load, and 3) the use of long range dependent data sources within the experiments.