Welcome to the fourth IFIP workshop on protocols for high speed networks in Vancouver. This workshop follows three very successful workshops held in Ziirich (1989), Palo Alto (1990) and Stockholm (1993) respectively. We received a large number of papers in response to our call for contributions. This year, forty papers were received of which sixteen were presented as full papers and four were presented as poster papers. Although we received many excellent papers the program committee decided to keep the number of full presentations low in order to accommodate more discussion in keeping with the format of a workshop. Many people have contributed to the success of this workshop including the members of the program committee who, with the additional reviewers, helped make the selection of the papers. We are thankful to all the authors of the papers that were submitted. We also thank several organizations which have contributed financially to this workshop, specially NSERC, ASI, CICSR, UBC, MPR Teltech and Newbridge Networks.

1 This year marks the l0 h anniversary of the IFIP International Workshop on Protocols for High-Speed Networks (PfHSN). It began in May 1989, on a hillside overlooking Lake Zurich in Switzerland, and arrives now in Salem Massachusetts 6,000 kilometers away and 10 years later, in its sixth incarnation, but still with a waterfront view (the Atlantic Ocean). In between, it has visited some picturesque views of other lakes and bays of the world: Palo Alto (1990 - San Francisco Bay), Stockholm (1993 - Baltic Sea), Vancouver (1994- the Strait of Georgia and the Pacific Ocean), and Sophia Antipolis I Nice (1996- the Mediterranean Sea). PfHSN is a workshop providing an international forum for the exchange of information on high-speed networks. It is a relatively small workshop, limited to 80 participants or less, to encourage lively discussion and the active participation of all attendees. A significant component of the workshop is interactive in nature, with a long history of significant time reserved for discussions. This was enhanced in 1996 by Christophe Diot and W allid Dabbous with the institution of Working Sessions chaired by an "animator," who is a distinguished researcher focusing on topical issues of the day. These sessions are an audience participation event, and are one of the things that makes PfHSN a true "working conference.

Leading authorities deliver the commandments for designing high-speed networks There are no end of books touting the virtues of one or another high-speed networking technology, but until now, there were none offering networking professionals a framework for choosing and integrating the best ones for their organization's networking needs. Written by two world-renowned experts in the field of high-speed network design, this book outlines a total strategy for designing high-bandwidth, low-latency systems. Using real-world implementation examples to illustrate their points, the authors cover all aspects of network design, including network components, network architectures, topologies, protocols, application interactions, and more.

This workshop on “Protocols for High-Speed Networks” is the seventh in a s- cessful series of international workshops, well known for their small and focused target audience, that provide a sound basis for intensive discussions of hi- qualityand timelyresearch work. The location of the workshop has alternated between Europe and the United States, at venues not onlyworth visiting for the workshop, but also for the distinct impressions theyleave on the participants. The ?rst workshop was held in 1989 in Zurich. Subsequentlythe workshop was moved to Palo Alto (1990), Stockholm (1993), Vancouver (1994), Sophia-Antipolis/Nice (1996), and Salem (1999). In 2002, the workshop was hosted in Berlin, the capital of Germany. PfHSN is a workshop providing an international forum that focuses on issues related to high-speed networking, such as protocols, implementation techniques, router design, network processors and the like. Although the topics have shifted during the last couple of years, for example, from parallel protocol implemen- tions to network processors, it could be observed that high speed remains a very important issue with respect to future networking. Traditionally, PfHSN is a r- ativelyfocused and small workshop with an audience of about 60 participants.

We arehappy to welcome you to the IFIP Protocols for High-Speed Networks '96 workshop hosted by INRIA Sophia Antipolis. This is the fifth event in a series initiated in Zurich in 1989 followed by Palo Alto (1990), Stockholm (1993), and Vancouver (1994). This workshop provides an international forum for the exchange of information on protocols for high-speed networks. The workshop focus on problems related to the e:fficient transmission of multimedia application data using high-speed networks and internetworks. Protocol for High-Speed Networks is a "working conference". That explains we have privileged high quality papers describing on-going research and novel ideas. The number of selected papers was kept low in order to leave room for discussion on each paper. Together with the technical sessions, working sessions were organized on hot topics. We would like to thank all the authors for their interest. We also thank the Program Committee members for the Ievel of effort in the reviewing process and in the workshop technical program organization. We finally thank INRIA and DRET for their financial support to the organization of the workshop.

Multimedia data streams will form a major part of the new generation of applications in high-speed networks. Continuous media streams, however, require transmission with guaranteed performance. In addition, many multimedia applications will require peer-to-multipeer communication. Guaranteed performance can only be provided with resource reservation in the network, and efficient multipeer communication must be based on multicast support in the lower layers of the network. Architecture and Protocols for High-Speed Networks focuses on techniques for building the networks that will meet the needs of these multimedia applications. In particular two areas of current research interest in such communication systems are covered in depth. These are the protocol related aspects, such as switched networks, ATM, MAC layer, network and transport layer; and the services and applications. Architecture and Protocols for High-Speed Networks contains contributions from leading world experts, giving the most up-to-date research available. It is an essential reference for all professionals, engineers and researchers working in the area of high-speed networks.

This is the sixth conference in the series which started in 1981 in Paris, followed by conferences held in Zurich (1984), Rio de Janeirio (1987), Barcelona (1991), and Raleigh (1993). The main objective of this IFIP conference series is to provide a platform for the exchange of recent and original contributions in communications systems in the areas of performance analysis, architectures, and applications. There are many exiciting trends and developments in the communications industry, several of which are related to advances in Asynchronous Transfer Mode·(ATM), multimedia services, and high speed protocols. It is commonly believed in the communications industry that ATM represents the next generation of networking. Yet, there are a number of issues that has been worked on in various standards bodies, government and industry research and development labs, and universities towards enabling high speed networks in general and ATM networks in particular. Reflecting these trends, the technical program of the Sixth IFIP W.G. 6.3 Conference on Performance of Computer Networks consists of papers addressing a wide range of technical challenges and proposing various state of the art solutions to a subset of them. The program includes 25 papers selected by the program committee out of 57 papers submitted.