Optimal IP network dimensioning for stream-type traffic using probabilistic delay constraints

In this paper, we address the problem of capacity assignment (CA) for latency-sensitive traffic in multi-service IP networks. The CA problem is formulated as an optimization problem with nonlinear constraints, where the total link capacity shares allocated to the given service are minimized subject to performance constraints in terms of end-to-end delay requirements. We introduce a new extension to traditional CA problems by setting a statistical bound on the maximum end-to-end delay experienced by all packets associated with the given latency-sensitive service. For a sample IP network scenario with VoIP traffic, we show that a relatively slight increase in capacity as compared with the classical approach is required to keep the probability of exceeding the maximum end-to-end network delay threshold below 0.1%.