On multiplexing gain for networks with deterministic delay guarantees

Multiplexing gain has been studied extensively in the context of statistical characterizations of traffic streams with quality-of-service criteria such as packet loss probability, mean delay, and delay variance. In this paper, we demonstrate that multiplexing gain can also arise in the context of deterministic traffic constraint functions, service curve scheduling, and qualityof-service requirements based on deterministic delay constraints. We show how to evaluate this multiplexing gain via the use of deterministic network calculus for both worst-case and timeaveraged delay constraints. We show that significant multiplexing gain can be achieved in a deterministic setting using numerical examples drawn from a number of well-known MPEG video traces. Our results have application to provisioning services with tight, real-time constraints on end-to-end delay performance.