Adaptive Bandwidth Allocation: Impact of Traffic Demand Models for Wide Area Networks

In this paper, we consider configurable capacity tunnels. Static bandwidth allocation (SBA) assigns the network capacity to the tunnels according to the busy hours of their traffic aggregates. At secondary times, their capacity is underutilized and can not be used to accommodate excess traffic of other tunnels. The contribution of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we propose two mechanisms for adaptive bandwidth allocation (ABA) for the tunnels: complete capacity reassignment (CCR) and selective capacity reassignment (SCR). They both adapt the tunnel capacities to the current traffic demands but differ in their implementation, signaling, and configuration complexity. Secondly, we asses the bandwidth savings of ABA vs. SBA in wide area networks where the transfer rates of traffic aggregates fluctuate over time according to busy hours. Our results show that the capacity savings strongly depend on the traffic model and that they may be increased by time-aware routing.