A PROTOTYPE TOOL FOR THE PLANNING AND ANALYSIS OF DISTRIBUTED REAL TIME COMPUTER NETWORKS

Under realistic operational conditions, high speed networks can be stressed or overloaded with a wide mixture of message flows corresponding to a multitude of service classes. It is essential that the network and system parameters and services, at each relevant communications layer, are set-up so that the network can properly support high performance realtime message streams serving mission critical distributed computer systems. Critical realtime performance features, including measures of delay, delay jitter, throughput, synchronization, scheduling, and reliability must be tightly controlled in an integrated services networking environment. The purpose of this proposed work is to use the structure of the currently existing IRI "Planyst" tool, to develop in Phase I models and methods that can then be used in Phase II for the development of a software based prototype tool for the planning and analysis of distributed realtime computer networks. The tool will also be used for calibrating the communications networking processes and parameters of realtime service support algorithms. The latter will be implemented within the multiple protocol layers, and across many subsystems and networks. Such networks include SAFENET and FDDI networks, packet switching and ATM cell switching networks, and interconnect processors which include multiplexers, bridges, routers, and switches.