Thesis Title:      Traffic and Equipment Modelling in High Speed Telecommunications Networks

Report Date:         25/12/96
Started:                  01/03/96
Status:                    Completed 30/04/98


Enrolled as a full-time postgraduate student at the Department of Computer Science, Monash University, Clayton, with Dr. Moshe Zukerman as Main Supervisor and Dr. Ron Addie as Associate Supervisor. At this early stage of the work, the focus is a broad task of modelling some leading edge equipment and protocols, while at the same time evaluating existing and new traffic models for self-similar traffic (which is likely to exist in the modern and emerging high speed telecommunications environment).

Currently, the two main thrusts of my PhD are: 
 

1. MediumAccess Protocol Study for Hybrid Fibre Coax CATV Networks.
2. Self-SimilarTraffic Models for High Speed Networks.
 

1.Medium Access Protocol Study for Hybrid Fibre Coax CATV Networks

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Started:     1/5/96 

Status:       Initial Study Complete, Phase Two In Progress


Investigating a promising protocol known as Centralised Priority Reservation (CPR), to be used for Cable Modem access in the new Hybrid Fibre-Coax (HFC) networks presently being rolled out around the country. An extensive literature survey of HFC access protocols is also being undertaken. The CPR protocolis very similar to MLAP (Medium Link Access Protocol), a protocol which has been submitted by IBM corporation to the IEEE 802.14 Working Group standardisation body, as a formal proposal. Hence, the results which are beginning to emerge from this study are significant, in that (1) the protocol under investigation is being backed by a powerful player in the industry and (2) we seem to be converging to clear dimensioning guidelines for access networks employing this type of protocol.

So far, significant effort has been put in:
 

• completing a literature survey of HFC networks and relevant protocols.
• choosing a particular protocol and studying it in detail. 
• coming up with a specific implementation of the chosen protocol and completing and debugging extensive C++ code in order to facilitate the protocol simulation. 
• developing a testing methodology (i.e. real Ethernet traffic and model traffic were used).


This effort has already resulted in a publication:

M.Ivanovich, M. Zukerman, R. Addie, "Performance of an IEEE 802.14 MAC Protocol Loaded by Real Traffic", Proceedings of the 8th IEEELAN/MAN Workshop, Berlin/Potsdam August, 1996.

In addition, a more detailed version of this paper with some further results has also been submitted to the 15th International Teletraffic Congress (Washington D.C., June 1997) for review.

The next stage of work, which is currently under way, involves:
 

• Evaluating different algorithms to be used at the head-end to fairly and efficiently handle the demands of prioritised traffic (and stream traffic).
• Obtaining more specific traffic traces, which are likely to describe the actual use of cable data modem access to the Internet (ie. Web browser traffic). 
• Testing of new traffic traces and obtaining protocol performance under such loading. 
• Development and performance evaluation of self-similar models of traffic in the access network.

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2.Self-Similar Traffic Models for High Speed Networks

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Started:     1/3/96 

Status:       In progress.


Traffic models for modern high speed networks based on ATM switching are being considered. Investigating the current state of the art in self-similar("fractal") traffic modelling, because it is very likely that the traffic which will be carried over such networks will be of this nature.

So far, significant progress has been made in compiling a large list of the latest reference material in this area of study. A portion of the literature survey has also been written.

Although the literature survey must be an ongoing endeavour, the next logical step will be to develop and test new variants of existing self-similar traffic models for data in the access network. 
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