Frame-counter scheduler: A novel QoS scheduler for real-time traffic

Real-time traffic communication has Quality of Service (QoS) requirements such as end-to-end bandwidth and delay guarantees. We propose a novel frame-based QoS Scheduler, the frame-counter scheduler, for connection oriented packet switching networks. The frame-counter scheduler significantly reduces the end-to-end delay bound and buffer requirements provided by other frame-based schedulers. A fixed amount of buffer is required per node for no packet-loss operation. There is no need for frame synchronization or inter-node communication. The scheduling complexity of frame-counter scheduler is O(1) which makes it possible to implement it for high-speed networks. The required input traffic shape is not more restrictive than the traffic shapes used by the other schedulers. In this paper, we present the proof for the end-to-end delay bound and the buffer requirement for the frame-counter scheduler. We also provide simulation results to demonstrate the average performance which show that the average end-to-end delay and delay variation (jitter) of the packets is much lower than the end-to-end bound. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.