An Efficient Reservation Connection Control Protocol for Gigabit Networks

Ž . The Efficient ReserÕation Virtual Circuit protocol or ERVC is a novel connection control protocol designed for constant-rate, delay-insensitive traffic in gigabit networks. We explain the operation of the protocol, discuss its features and advantages, and present its performance characteristics. The ERVC protocol is appropriate for sessions that require an explicit reservation of capacity and can tolerate the round-trip delay associated with the reservations. In the ERVC protocol, the durations of the sessions are recorded, and every node keeps track of the utilization profile of each outgoing link, which describes the amount of residual capacity available on the link as a function of time. This feature allows capacity to be reserved only for the duration of the session, starting at the time it is actually needed. Therefore, the protocol utilizes capacity considerably more efficiently than regular reservation schemes do and results in markedly lower blocking probability for new sessions. The ERVC protocol also has the ‘‘reservation ahead’’ feature, which allows a node to calculate the time at which the requested capacity will be available and reserve it in advance, avoiding in this way the wasteful repetition of the call setup phase. q 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.