A universal analytic approximation is proposed for the performance analysis of a general queueing model of a shared buffer ATM switch architecture with bursty arrivals. The forms of the joint, aggregate and marginal state probabilities are characterised via entropy maximisation. As an application, a continuous-time maximum entropy (ME) solution is implemented at equilibrium by assuming that the arrival process to each port of the ATM switch is modelled by a Compound Poisson Process (CPP) with

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... ometrically distributed batches. Consequently, efficient z-transform-type recursive expressions of low computational cost are derived. Validation tests against simulation show that the ME approximation is credible with a very good error-level. Moreover, performance bounds for the mean queue length and cell-loss probability at each output port are experimentally defined over those generated by Interrupted Poisson Processes (IPPs) having the same first two interarrival-time moments.