Performance analysis of the CRMA-protocol in high-speed networks

Abstract In this paper a performance analysis of the CRMA medium access protocol is presented. The CRMA (Cyclic Reservation Multiple Access) scheme is proposed as an access mechanism for high-speed LANs and MANs. An approximate computational method is derived to obtain the distribution functions of performance measures of interest like the medium access delay and the packet transfer time. The analysis is done using a decomposition approach for the access delay in conjunction with a G/G/1 queue with control-feedback and a M/G/1 queue with server vacation, observed in discrete-time domain. The reservation-cancelation backpressure mechanism is also taken into account in the model. Numerical results are obtained to investigate the efficiency of the backpressure scheme and the scaling issues of the interreserve interval under various load conditions and system configurations. Furthermore, results addressing performance aspects like the fairness issues, the jitter of maximum access delay and the system behavior under station-wise saturated conditions are also discussed.