Optimal flow control schemes for ATM networks

We examine some fundamental problems in the design of flow control for ATM based B-ISDN. The problem of designing burst reducing flow controllers for traffic in an ATM network is studied. By requiring that the output flow obey certain burstiness constraints, it is shown that an optimal design exists and can be easily implemented in real time. Two versions of the problem are considered. The first one places constraints on the buffer size and the second one on the maximum delay that a cell can experience. The problems are solved both in discrete and continuous time and for arbitrary traffic processes. As a by-product of our analysis and methods, the optimality of the popular leaky bucket flow control scheme is also established