Apparatus and method for optimizing max-min fair rate control in Available Bit Rate (ABR) sessions

摘要

A method and/or apparatus are disclosed for determining an optimum Link Control Parameter (LCP) for insertion into the Explicit Rate (ER) field of a Resource Management (RM) cell. The LCP value is based upon per port Available Bit Rate (ABR) activity and provides fairness amongst ABR sessions. The LCP value is periodically determined for each output port and is based upon the number of ABR cells passing through a particular output port, available ABR capacity, the number of sessions passing through the port and a stochastic approximation gain. If the LCP value is lower than the value contained in the ER field of the RM cell travelling through the switch then the value in the ER field is replaced by the LCP value. When the sender receives an RM cell, the transmission rate is adjusted in accordance with the associated LCP value. The headers of all incoming cells are examined to determine whether they are ABR cells, the VPI/VCI values are used to determine the number of the corresponding output port and counters are provided for counting the number of ABR cells passing through each output port.