Centralized vs. Decentralized: A Hybrid Performance Model of the TSN Resource Allocation Protocol

Time-Sensitive Networking can provide a wide array of QoS guarantees that can be leveraged in a variety of use cases, ranging from industrial applications to autonomous driving. While the control plane can be configured following either a distributed or a centralized paradigm, it is difficult to make general assertions about the affinity of different topologies and use cases towards these configuration methods. In this work, we propose a hybrid simulation of the Resource Allocation Protocol to evaluate the reservation performance across a wide range of network configurations. Results show distinct behaviors between the configuration paradigms, making a case for decentralized control when scalability is critical. In addition, we make our implementation of the developed hybrid model publicly available.