An architecture for real-time control of broadband networks

An architecture capable of supporting real-time traffic monitoring and control, management, and information transport for broadband networks is outlined. It embeds the management, the traffic control, and the information transport architectures. The traffic control architecture (TCA) is characterized both as a resource manager and an extended machine. The traffic control model employed consists of a statistical and a dynamic database and a set of distributed algorithms that interact by writing and reading into these databases. The latter are part of a knowledge database capable of supporting monitoring, control, and fault management tasks. The associated tasks operate on two time scales: a fast time scale with reaction times to events on the order of milliseconds and a slow time scale where actions in response to events take place within seconds. The TCA and the information transport architecture run on the fast time scale whereas the management architecture runs on the slow time scale