The ERICA ALGORITHM for ABR TRAFFIC in ATM NETWORKS

In this paper, we explain a congestion avoidance switch algorithm called ERICA (Explicit Rate Indication for Congestion Avoidance) for ABR traffic management in ATM networks, and present some simulation results for a simple ATM network using this algorithm. The networks using this scheme monitor the load on the link and determine a load factor, the available capacity and the number of active VCs (virtual channels). The network will use these information to keep the link utilization high, i.e. advice the sources about the rates they should transmit. So this way sources can use network resources much more efficiently, with smaller queuing delays and transient response