Quick Estimation of Blocking and Utilization for Complex Traffic Flows

摘要

A simple, efficient method is presented to estimate the blocking probability and link utilization for general multirate traffic, where the individual bandwidth demands may aggregate in complex, nonlinear ways. The new estimation is derived without adopting conventional performance modeling assumptions, such as Poisson arrivals or exponential holding times, thus allowing non-standard behaviour patterns, including self-similarity. At the same tune, the estimation provably maintains an optimally tight exponent and is capable of handling apparently very different cases in a unified way. The approach also makes it possible to make estimations under incomplete information. We show that the results are easily applicable for fast, robust link dimensioning, especially in case of complex traffic patterns, under partial information. Moreover, it is very well fitted for embedding into network level optimization tasks, due in part to simplicity and in part to convexity properties.