Improved VC-Merging for Multiway Communications in ATM Networks

The routing and signaling protocols for supporting multipoint-to-multipoint connections in ATM networks have been presented earlier. VP-Merge and VC-Merge techniques have been proposed as the likely candidates for resolving the sender identification problem associated with these connections. The additional buffer requirements in the VC-Merge mechanism and the excessive use of VPI/VCI space in the VP-Merge mechanism have been the main reasons for concern about their effective utility. In this paper, we propose improvements to the traditional VC-Merge technique to minimize the need for additional buffers at intermediate merge points. Aptly named Dynamic Multiple VCMerge (DMVC), Fixed Multiple VC-Merge (FMVC) and Selective Multiple VC-Merge (SMVC), these mechanisms define a generic scheme for merging the data from multiple senders onto one or more outgoing links. By appropriately choosing the number of connection identifiers per connection, these schemes lead to a large reduction in the buffer requirements and an effective utilization of the VPI/VCI space. Based on extensive simulations, we show that by using two connection identifiers per connection, there is an 80% reduction in buffer requirements for DMVC and FMVC when compared to the buffer required for traditional VCMerge.