Equivalent Versions of Total Flow Analysis

Abstract: Total Flow Analysis (TFA) is a method for conducting the worst-case analysis of time sensitive networks without cyclic dependencies. In networks with cyclic dependencies, Fixed-Point TFA introduces artificial cuts, analyses the resulting cycle-free network with TFA, and iterates. If it converges, it does provide valid performance bounds. We show that the choice of the specific cuts used by Fixed-Point TFA does not affect its convergence nor the obtained performance bounds, and that it can be replaced by an alternative algorithm that does not use any cut at all, while still applying to cyclic dependencies.