| The Integrated Services approach of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is designed to support the integration of voice, data, and other multimedia information within the best-effort delivery mechanisms of the Internet. As the Internet evolves with the introduction of new technologies that provide guaranteed Quality of Service, new protocols come into use which provide for resources to be reserved across the ever-growing hybrid infrastructure. This dissertation considers a unified approach to the four accepted models for channel management of an Ethernet to Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) edge device which supports the Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP).; This unified approach to virtual circuit management resulted in the development of three techniques: Scalability Enhancement, Bandwidth Recovery, and Congestion Reduction to transition between the four models—Aggregate, Homogeneous, and Limited and Full Heterogeneity. To test the transitioning strategies a prototypical edge device was designed and implemented that consists of a virtual circuit manager subsystem, regulation subsystem, traffic monitoring and policing kernel interface, and packet classification and prioritized queueing management.; The results show that the Scalability Enhancement technique can be used to free up virtual circuit resources by switching from more complex to simpler management models using aggregation. The results also show that Bandwidth Recovery allows existing connections which are not fully using their previously negotiated reserved resource allocation to share with existing overlimit or new flows. And finally, the results show that when the edge device can no longer share resources across the existing set of connections, then the system is brought into a stable (no packet loss) state by policing the appropriate set of worst case flows that are in violation of their negotiated traffic contracts.; In the course of the research the applicability of the transitioning techniques to the state-of-the-art in IP multicast over ATM research was considered. This includes extensions to Local Area Network Emulation (LANE), Multiprotocol Over ATM (MPOA), Multicast Address Resolution Server (MARS), Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), and Differentiated Services (DiffServ). Additionally, the potential for management of these services across the global internet infrastructure was considered. Finally, the unified model presented in this work was compared and contrasted with recent related research efforts within the IETF as well as at IBM T.J. Watson and within the European Union funded activities. |
