Inter-ring traffic management for global fairness in bridged resilient packet rings

One of the key characteristics of resilient packet rings (RPR) is that the bandwidth is fairly shared among all the nodes in the same ring. This fairness is accomplished through the use of local fairness algorithms. However, there has yet to be research conducted on fairness in bridged RPR networks. In this paper, we assert the need to consider fairness between rings for inter-ring traffic, or global fairness. We present the global fairness reference model for defining global fairness and for calculating the global fair rate. By having the nodes limit in transmit rate to the global fair rate, global fairness can be achieved in the bridged network. Existing local fairness algorithms will be shown not to support global fairness. As a result, we will also propose a global fairness algorithm for global fairness. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is successful in ensuring global fairness in the bridged network.