Modeling and simulation of broadband satellite networks. II. Traffic modeling

For p.I see ibid., vol.37, no.3, p.72-9 (1999). Traffic models for satellite network simulation must cover a broad range of traffic types and characteristics because the type of users/terminals that will access a satellite channel will range from a single home user (low traffic aggregation) to Internet backbone nodes (very high traffic aggregation). In addition, since satellite resources are generally considered more scarce than their fiber counterparts, the accuracy and practicality of traffic models play a crucial role. We address these challenges by identifying three traffic modeling areas for satellite network simulation, and propose an effective and flexible traffic model for each area: a discrete autoregressive process for MBone video source modeling; the superposition of fractal renewal processes (Sup-FRP) model for Web request arrivals; and a generalized shot-noise-driven Poisson point process (GSNDP) for aggregate traffic flows modeling. The efficacy of the first two models is demonstrated based on statistical analysis of various video and Web traces. These simulation-oriented models provide accurate descriptions of source traffic at various levels of traffic aggregation, and thus enable satellite network researchers and practitioners to understand key network design and engineering issues such as QoS provisioning based on simulation.