Optimal Admission Control of Two Traffic Types at a Circuit- Switched Network Node

Two communication traffic streams with Poisson statistics arrive at a network node on separate routes. These streams are to be forwarded to their destinations via a common trunk. The two links leading to the common trunk have capacities C1 and C2 bandwidth units, respectively, while the capacity of the common trunk is C bandwidth units, where C < C1 + C2. Calls of either traffic type that are not admitted at the node are assumed to be discarded. An admitted call of either type will occupy, for an exponentially distributed random time, one bandwidth unit on its forwarding link as well as on the common trunk. Our objective is to determine a scheme for the optimal dynamic allocation of available bandwidth among the two traffic streams so as to minimize a weighted blocking cost. The problem is formulated as a Markov decision process. By using dynamic programming principles, the optimal admission policy is shown to be of the "bang-bang" type, characterized by appropriate "switching curves". The case of a general circuit-switched network, as well as numerical examples, are also presented