Abstract: To achieve delay-bounded transmissions for time-sensitive applications, we propose an innovative cross-domain deterministic network mechanism. The proposed mechanism deploys discrete shapers at the network edge to decouple neighbor domains from the time synchronization, which helps to reduce the complexity. In other words, we require no time/frequency synchronization between neighbor domains; and the network could still provide delay-bunded transmission services. Meanwhile, the proposed mechanism enhances the availability of deterministic networking. Other than the periodic deterministic traffic, more types of traffic could be served, including aperiodic deterministic traffic and stochastic flows. Finally, we develop an auction-based online scheduling algorithm to improve network efficiency and reduce cost. The simulation results show that the proposed mechanism can effectively realize the end-to-end delay-bounded transmission across multiple domains. At the same time, the cross-domain latency could also be reduced compared to the existing methods.

Key words: deterministic networking, network calculus, across-domain transmission, flow scheduling