A heuristic approach for performance analysis of ATM systems

A heuristic approach to analyzing the performance of ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) systems is presented. It is based on a fluid approximation and a G/D/1 queue adjustment which removes the possible inaccuracy of the fluid approximation in light to moderate traffic. The performance analysis predicts the buffer content and packet delay distributions, which usually have stringent requirements. An infinite buffer is assumed in the analysis. For ATM networks, where the buffer overflow probability is small, the infinite-buffer model approximates the finite-buffer case well. A number of numerical examples show that this heuristic approach is very accurate over a wide range of system parameters