Performance analysis of multimedia applications in Differentiated Services networks

In this paper, we present simulation results assessing the performance of DiffServ-capable networks supporting real time multimedia traffic. We evaluate the performance of voice traffic, H263 video traffic and distributed interactive virtual environments (DIVE) applications with Web background traffic in a DiffServ-capable network. Particularly, the performance of weighted fair queuing (WFQ) algorithm is studied, and a realistic Web workload model generating aggregation of self-similar bursty traffic flows is developed and used to evaluate the performance of all above multimedia applications. Our analysis demonstrates that these multimedia applications can be well supported by DiffServ-capable networks even under the bursty Web style traffic, given that the subscribed bandwidth of the application is no less than its source generating data rate. According to our results, even for the most demanding DIVE application, bandwidth reservation at twice the source-generating rate is enough.