Modelling of multimedia MAC protocols on WDM optical networks

Conventional Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols perform quite well for the traffic types they have been designed for, but poorly for other traffic streams with different characteristics. But, the emerging multimedia applications require that the MAC protocol should perform equally well for all types of traffic characteristics. In this paper, we propose an integrated MAC protocol (herein termed as Multimedia Medium Access Control protocol (MultimediaMAC)) which integrates different MAC protocols into a hybrid protocol to efficiently accommodate various types of multimedia traffic streams with different characteristics and QoS demands. We have applied our Multimedia-MAC design approach to wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) based optical network. We have developed a mathematical framework for the analysis and performance evaluation of our Multimedia-MAC protocol which involves a queueing model with vacation. for other traffic streams with different characteristics. This is true for wireline networks (including wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) based optical networks) as well as wireless networks. The objective of this paper is to propose a methodology and framework for integrating different MAC protocols into an hybrid protocol to efficiently accommodate various types of multimedia traffic streams with different characteristics and QoS demands. The proposed integrated MAC protocol is termed Multimedia Medium Access Control (MultimediaMAC) protocol. We use queueing with vacation for the analysis and performance evaluation of Multimedia-MAC protocol. This paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces our Multimedia-MAC protocol. We present the application of Multimedia-MAC protocol for WDM networks and the related performance studies in Section 3. Finally, Section 4 coi?cludes the paper. 2. THE MULTIMEDIA-MAC PROTOCOL