System Overload and System Utilization — Myths and Realities

Abstract

There is a myth flying in the air that you can reach very high system utilization and nothing will happen to a system. The intelligent response to any myth is to look at the circumstances at which the heralded phenomena took place and resist the temptation to over-generalize the effect. This paper is written with the intention to draw a line in the sand. To show under what conditions a system can be used without any overload protection and when more expensive overload protection solutions are more cost effective or even the only game in town. The efficiency of described overload protection algorithm is evaluated through the reduction in lost calls due to system overloads. An analysis of typical busy hour traffic helps to identify traffic and system parameters, which meet an overload protection objective.