A dynamic buffer allocation scheme for nrt-traffics in ATM switches

In this paper we propose a dynamic buffer allocation scheme for nrt-traffic in ATM switches that accommodates various service classes using a common buffer. This scheme dynamically controls thresholds of the buffer not to drop cells for loss-specified services and fairly allocates the buffer space among best-effort services. When the buffer occupancy exceeds a certain threshold level, it begins the early packet discard (EPD) mechanism for unspecified bit rate (UBR) and guaranteed frame rate (GFR). By dynamically sharing the buffer space among different services, this scheme can improve both fairness and buffer utilization to support various qualities of service (QoS) requirements.