Efficient simulation of cell loss probability using standardized ATM connection traffic descriptors

In ATM networks, the purpose of connection admission control is to decide if allowing a new connection into the network violates a quality of service measure, such as the cell loss probability. Testing the algorithms that perform connection admission control is difficult because of the complexity of the ATM switches, the low cell loss probabilities required by ATM networks, and the unwieldiness of matching statistical models of the traffic entering the network to the connection traffic descriptors used by the call admission control algorithm. In the paper, instead of using statistical traffic models, the authors describe the traffic entering the network by the connection traffic descriptors standardised by the ATM Forum. They develop a simulation model for estimating the cell loss probability, derive upper and lower bounds on the cell loss probability, use importance sampling to increase the efficiency of the simulation, and find an analytical solution for the improvement in simulation efficiency. For the examples considered they obtained 3 to 9 orders of magnitude improvement in efficiency compared to conventional Monte Carlo simulation.