A high-speed data/voice integrated campus backbone network: Design and simulation.

This dissertation is concerned with the design of a high speed fiber optic campus backbone network which not only provides a high bandwidth connection to various LANs, PBXs, ISDNs, supercomputers, and other high speed computing facilities but also offers an integrated service of voice and data. The campus backbone network is based on an optical fiber dual ring structure. A new token ring protocol based on the IEEE 802.5 standard is proposed as the medium access protocol for the backbone network. In the proposed token ring network, the token holder transmits packets in an exhaustive way when no other nodes want to transmit voice packets. If any node has voice packets waiting for transmission, the token holder can transmit only a single packet during its access opportunity. In this way, not only can the voice delay be bounded at high voice traffic intensities, but a high data throughput can be achieved at low voice traffic intensities. The potential use of Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) was also considered, but the TDM technique was found to be less suitable for our campus environment mainly due to its low efficiency in bursty environments and complex hardware requirements. The backbone network was simulated using the Simscript II.5 discrete event simulation language. The simulation results indicated that the proposed token ring protocol provides satisfactory performances in every respect. A network interface unit (NIU) was designed, which consists of optical transmitter, receiver, and fault tolerance mechanisms as well as the protocol engine. The optimal values of major parameters for the NIU design were determined by the simulation