Design and simulation of an efficient real-time traffic scheduler with jitter and delay guarantees

In this paper, we propose a framework for real-time multimedia transmission in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks using an efficient traffic scheduling scheme called multilayer gated frame queueing (MGFQ). MGFQ employs only one set of FIFO queues to provide a wide range of QoS for real-time applications. We also propose special cell formats for real-time multimedia transport and a hybrid design to allow MGFQ to combine its scheduling scheme with Age Priority Packet Discarding scheme. For this hybrid design, the cell level performance as well as the packet level QoS can be improved at the same time. Simulation results show that this hybrid design will be useful for packetized voice and progressive layer-compressed video transmission across the backbone networks. With the presented framework and the MGFQ algorithm, real-time multimedia traffic streams can be much better supported in terms of cell/packet delay and jitter.