Presents a new scheme that enables destination nodes in a slotted shared medium network to release some received slots, hence making them available for reuse by other downstream nodes in the network. This scheme ensures a significant increase in the effective capacity of the network without any noticeable degradation in node processing delays, or increase of node complexity.>

The authors propose a mechanism for implementing priorities in an IEEE 802.6 (DQDB) subnetwork of a metropolitan area network. The mechanism allows the priorities to be preemptively multiplexed among each other, thus, always guaranteeing maximum bandwidth to the highest priority traffic whenever it is requested. The proposed mechanism responds fast in the presence of high priority traffic and it takes full effect within at most one round trip propagation delay.>

The high performance transparent bridge (HPTB) is a multiport bridge interconnecting gigabit networks. The provision of specialized hardware support coupled with proper partitioning of bridging protocol entities makes it possible to process frames at very high rates. The HPTB architecture allows concurrent bridging of asynchronous, synchronous and isochronous traffic among heterogeneous networks. It supports both traditional networks, such as variable packet size local area networks (LANs), and cell-based net works, such as distributed queue dual bus (DQDB) and metropolitan area networks (MANs). This device is capable of interconnecting any combination of high speed LANs of rates up to 800 Mbps and/or MANs of rates up to 622 Mbps.>

A framework containing a number of resources, languages, and tools for generating customized protocols that support diverse multimedia applications running on high-performance networks is described. The framework facilitates the configuration of application-tailored, function-based communication protocols that are automatically synthesized from high-level specifications.

The proliferation of local area networks (LANs) and the emergence of high-bandwidth public networks will create an environment in which it will become increasingly simple and attractive to communicate among different organizations across a common public networking infrastructure. The open bridging scheme proposed, which employs inherent features of forthcoming cell-based metropolitan area networks (MANs) in order to achieve efficient interenterprise communications is introduced. It uses enhanced remote LAN bridging techniques to ensure router-level functionality with bridge-level simplicity and performance. The practicality of open bridging is shown by describing how it can be incorporated in networks using current standard protocol stacks, such as open systems interconnnection (OSI) and transmission control protocol/internet protocol (TCP/IP).>

A function-based communication model that allows applications to request individually tailored services from the communication subsystem is presented. Based on service requirements and available resources, suitable protocol machines are configured to serve the application. This configuration is done using a proper combination of functional modules. The concept of layering is therefore abandoned for both flexibility and efficiency reasons.>

A scheduling scheme that allows a number of customers to share a common resource in an efficient and fair way is presented. Each customer is allowed to use the resource for an amount of time that does not exceed a certain limit, the limit being a function of the waiting time elapsed between the time of its last request and the time of access to the resource. After expiration of the service time allocated to a customer, if more service is still needed, the customer has to re-enter the request queue and issue a new service request. The scheme combines the advantages of both processor-sharing and first-come, first-served disciplines in a dynamic way. The applicability and the advantages of the scheme in both open and closed system environments are discussed.>

An analysis of potential parallelism in TCP/IP is presented for two purposes. First, it is used as a basis for an implementation on a multiprocessing platform. Second, it reveals the areas where protocol modifications and/or tuning would yield more efficient implementations on multiprocessors. The focus is on the analysis, and detailed dependence graphs among the atomic TCP/IP protocol functions are presented. No specific implementation design is shown, since this highly depends on the particular hardware chosen.>