A video-on-demand ATM system with MPEG VBR video traffic

In this paper we present the behavior of the Sunshine ATM switch for variable bit rate (VER) MPEG video sources. The Sunshine switch is the main distribution element of our near video-on-demand (NVOD) system. We are adding a copy network to the basic Sunshine architecture in order to provide it with a multicasting capability. Basically, our system consists of a cascade of a NVOD server, a copy network, a Sunshine switch, and the users. Requests for new movies can be served each 5 minutes. We investigate, by making extensive simulations, the complexity of the switch for light, medium, and heavy MPEG traffic. Important dimensioning parameters investigated are the number of recirculators and the number of banyan networks in the switch for a cell blocking probability of 10(-6). Our video traffic simulator generates MPEG video traffic for a videoconference-type of sources with a few different scenes and Gamma distributed holding times.