Return to search

On the management and performance of a class of local area networks

This dissertation is concerned with the management and performance issues of those register-insertion (R-I) ring type local area networks (LANs) which employ the message removal by destination node protocol. A typical example of such a network is the Distributed Loop Computer Network (DLCN). developed by Liu et al for fundamental research in the field of distributed computing. After considering the management issues of low cost R-J LANs. the research deals with performance analysis of the dynamically reconfigurable register-insertion (DRR) network. In the first part of this research. a set of management functions is identified which are desirable and can be provided economically by a low cost LAN. A unique feature of the DLCN is that messages are removed from the network by the destination node. that is. messages do not travel whole of the loop. Therefore. it is not possible for a special control node to monitor the data traffic on the network without providing support functionality in each network access unit (NAU). The minimum functionality which must be provided in each NAU is identified in the thesis. A skeleton network was implemented to verify the feasibility of the proposed scheme. A paper describing the findings of this research was published and is reproduced as appendix A. In the second part of this research. a new feature of the DLCN network is introduced. namely. that the performance of a network employing removal by destination protocol can be improved by reconfiguring the network in a particular way. A methodology to find the optimal configuration is developed and is shown. by worked examples. to lead to improved performance. The findings of this research are particularly applicable to the dynamically reconfigurable register-insertion (DRR) network. A paper dealing with the optimisation of a hypothetical fully connected DRR network has been accepted for publication. Another paper. which considers the general case of less than fully connected DRR networks. is to be published. Both papers are reproduced as append ices Band C. Finally. a performance study of the ORR network is undertaken. As there seems to be no published attempt at formal analysis or simulation of a ORR network. a survey of literature dealing with performance study of the basic OLeN is performed. A simulation model of the DRR was then developed and implemented to verify the results arrived at in the previous section. Later. a queueing model of the DRR network. based on the work of Bux and Schlatter [7] is developed and analysed. Both simulation and analysis support the claim that the performance of a DRR network can be improved by adopting the configuration strategy developed in this thesis.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:374496
Date January 1986
CreatorsYasin, M. M.
PublisherOpen University
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://oro.open.ac.uk/54431/

Page generated in 0.0016 seconds