Subject: Token bucket and how to pick B and R

From: "levent ((919)-254-4861)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 30 Aug 94 22:23:03 EDT

Mark,
somebody forwarded exchange of notes on the above subject which included
a question on pointers to how to dimension a token bucket...
I'll provide 2 (unfortunately neither is available in softcopy)
There are other references in both papers.

1.L. Gun, V. Kulkarni and A. Narayan, Annals of Operations Research, V.49.
  pp.161-183, Jan. 1994.
  "Bandwidth Allocation and access control in high speed networks"

2.L. Gun, Roch Guerin, Infocom'92, pp. 1-12.
  "A Unified approach to bandwidth allocation and access control in fast packet
   switching networks".

Both papers consider two state Markov on/off processes for ease of computations
however, the methodology in both are not limited to assumptions on the
arrival processes.In fact, it is not too difficult the extend the results to
more general processes...

The first paper poses the problem as a constraint minimization problem and
finds the optimum point of the B(R) curve. What is minimized is the bandwidth
requirement in a queue that the output process of the token bucket is input to.
Constraint is a delay target due to shaping in the token bucket.

The second paper aims to tie the selection of the token bucket parameters to
the resource allocation method used in the network. It is driven by
on line implementable solutions.

Hope this helps. I think the first paper is more directly related to your
discussion. I can send you a hardcopy or bring one to Ottowa late Sept.
Regards,

Levent Gun (IBM)