Real-time packet switching: a performance analysis

The authors model the internal structure of a packet-switching node in a real-time system and characterize the tradeoff between throughput, delay, and packet loss as a function of the buffer size, switching speed, etc. They assume a simple shared-single-path switch fabric, though the analysis can be generalized to a wider class of switch fabrics. They show that with a small number of buffers the node will provide a guaranteed delay bound for high-priority traffic, a low average delay for low-priority traffic, no loss of packets at the input and low probability of packet loss at output.<>