A congestion control algorithm for multipoint-to-multipoint ABR service in ATM network

Multipoint-to-multipoint communication is the exchange of information among three or more users. It is desirable that each user only needs to manage one output link and one input link as if in a point-to-point communication. The user will see the output link as a point-to-multipoint connection and the input link as a multipoint-to-point connection. The logical point-to-multipoint and multipoint-to-point connections are overlaid on the ATM network using the VCI mapping and VC merging techniques. The flow control mechanism is not only required to regulate the sending rate of individual sources, but also control the aggregated cell rates of all other users in the group not to exceed the predefined peak rate. A new feedback consolidation algorithm that meets the additional requirement is presented. The performance of the proposed method is studied via computer simulation. The results show that our method can overcome the drawbacks of the previous method by Ren et al. (see IEEE ATM'96 Workshop, 1995 and Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, vol.30, p.1793-1810, 1998). © 2000 IEEE.