This paper presents a novel framework for managing network congestion from an end-to-end perspective. Our work is motivated by several trends in traffic patterns that threaten the long-term stability of the Internet. These trends include the use of multiple independent concurrent flows by Web applications and the increasing use of transport protocols and applications that do not adapt to congestion. We present an end-system architecture centered around a Congestion Manager (CM) that ensures proper congestion behavior and allows applications to easily adapt to network congestion. Our framework integrates congestion management across all applications and transport protocols. The CM maintains congestion parameters and exposes an API to enable applications to learn about network characteristics, pass information to the CM, and schedule data transmissions. Internally, it uses a stable rate-based control algorithm, a scheduler to regulate transmissions, and a lightweight loss-resilient protocol to elicit feedback from receivers. Its ratebased scheme uses additive increase/multiplicative decrease, combined with a novel exponential aging scheme when receiver feedback is infrequent, to obtain both stable network behavior and good application performance.

The up-coming Gbps high-speed networks are expected to support a wide range of communication-intensive, real-time multimedia applications. The requirement for timely delivery of digitized audio-visual information raises new challenges for the next generation integrated-service broadband networks. One of the key issues is the Quality-of-Service (QoS) routing. It selects network routes with sufficient resources for the requested QoS parameters. The goal of routing solutions is two-fold: (1) satisfying the QoS requirements for every admitted connection and (2) achieving the global efficiency in resource utilization. Many unicast/multicast QoS routing algorithms were published recently, and they work with a variety of QoS requirements and resource constraints. Overall, they can be partitioned into three broad classes: (1) source routing, (2) distributed routing and (3) hierarchical routing algorithms. In this paper we give an overview of the QoS routing problem as well as the existing solutions. We present the strengths and the weaknesses of different routing strategies and outline the challenges. We also discuss the basic algorithms in each class, classify and compare them, and point out possible future directions in the QoS routing area.

The proportional differentiation model provides the network operator with the `tuning knobs' for adjusting the per-hop quality-of-service (QoS) ratios between classes, independent of the class loads. This paper applies the proportional model in the differentiation of queueing delays, and investigates appropriate packet scheduling mechanisms. Starting from the proportional delay differentiation (PDD) model, we derive the average queueing delay in each class, show the dynamics of the class delays under the PDD constraints, and state the conditions in which the PDD model is feasible. The feasibility model of the model can be determined from the average delays that result with the strict priorities scheduler. We then focus on scheduling mechanisms that can implement the PDD model, when it is feasible to do so. The proportional average delay (PAD) scheduler meets the PDD constraints, when they are feasible, but it exhibits a pathological behavior in short timescales. The waiting time priority (WTP) scheduler, on the other hand, approximates the PDD model closely, even in the short timescales of a few packet departures, but only in heavy load conditions. PAD and WTP serve as motivation for the third scheduler, called hybrid proportional delay (HPD). HPD approximates the PDD model closely, when the model is feasible, independent of the class load distribution. Also, HPD provides predictable delay differentiation even in short timescales.

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Present day routers typically employ monolithic operating systems which are not easily upgradahle and extensible. With the rapid rate of protocol development it is becoming increasingly important to dynamically upgrade router software in an incre-mental fashion. We have designed and implemented a high performance, modular, extended integrated services router software architecture in the NetBSD operating system kernel. This architecture allows code modules, called plugins, to be dynamically added and configured at run time. One of the novel features of our design is the ability to bind different plugins to individual flows; this allows for distinct plugin implementations to seamlessly coexist in the same runtime environment. High performance is achieved through a carefully designed modular architecture; an innovative packet classification algorithm that is both powerful and highly efficient; and by caching that exploits the flow-like character-istics of Internet traffic. Compared to a monolithic best-effort kernel, our implementation requires an average increase in packet processing overhead of only 8 % , or 500 cycles/2.lms per packet when run-ning on a P61233. 1.1 Keywords High performance integrated services routing, modular router architecture, router plugins 2.

In this paper, we study hierarchical resource management models and algorithms that support both link-sharing and guaranteed real-time services with decoupled delay (priority) and bandwidth allocation. We extend the service curve based QoS model, which defines both delay and bandwidth requirements of a class, to include fairness, which is important for the integration of real-time and hierarchical linksharing services. The resulting Fair Service Curve linksharing model formalizes the goals of link-sharing and realtime services and exposes the fundamental tradeoffs between these goals. In particular, with decoupled delay and bandwidth allocation, it is impossible to simultaneously provide guaranteed real-time service and achieve perfect link-sharing. We propose a novel scheduling algorithm called Hierarchical Fair Service Curve (H-FSC) that approximates the model closely and efficiently. The algorithm always guarantees the performance for leaf classes, thus ensures real-time services, while minimizing the discrepancy between the actual services provided to the interior classes and the services defined by the Fair Service Curve link-sharing model. We have implemented the H-FSC scheduler in the NetBSD environment. By performing simulation and measurement experiments, we evaluate the link-sharing and real-time performances of H-FSC, and determine the computation overhead.

RAM) proposed in [20] presented an analytical approach for satisfying multiple quality-of-service dimensions in a resource-constrained environment. Using this model, available system resources can be apportioned across multiple applications such that the net utility that accrues to the end-users of those applications is maximized. In this paper, we present several practical solutions to allocation problems that were beyond the limited scope of [20]. First, we show that the Q-RAM problem of finding the optimal resource allocation to satisfy multiple QoS dimensions (at least one of which is dependent on another) is NP-hard. We then present a polynomial solution for this resource allocation problem which yields a solution within a provably fixed and short distance from the optimal allocation. Secondly, [20] dealt mainly with the problem of apportioning a single resource to satisfy multiple QoS dimensions. In this paper, we study the converse problem of apportioning multiple resources to satisfy a single QoS dimension. In practice, this problem becomes complicated, since a single QoS dimension perceived by the user can be satisfied using different combinations of available resources. We show that this problem can be formulated as a mixed integer programming problem that can be solved efficiently to yield an optimal resource allocation. Finally, we also present the run-times of these optimizations to illustrate how these solutions can be applied in practice. We expect that a good understanding of these solutions will yield insights into the general problem of apportioning multiple resources to satisfy simultaneously multiple QoS dimensions of multiple concurrent applications. 1.

A major challenge in the Internet is to deliver live audio/video content with a good quality and to transfer files to large number of heterogeneous receivers. Multicast and cumulative layered transmission are two mechanisms of interest to accomplish this task efficiently. However, protocols using these mechanisms suffer from slow convergence time, lack of inter-protocol fairness or TCP-fairness, and loss induced by the join experiments. In this paper we define and investigate the properties of a new multicast congestion control protocol (called PLM) for audio/video and file transfer applications based on a cumulative layered multicast transmission. A fundamental contribution of this paper is the introduction and evaluation of a new and efficient technique based on packet pair to infer which layers to join. We evaluated PLM for a large variety of scenarios and show that it converges fast to the optimal link utilization, induces no loss to track the available bandwidth, has inter...

With the transformation of the Internet into a commercial infrastructure, the ability to provide differentiated services to users with widely varying requirements is rapidly becoming as important as meeting the massive increases in bandwidth demand. Hence, while deploying routers, switches, and transmission systems of ever increasing capacity, Internet service providers would also like to provide customer-specific differentiated services using the same shared network infrastructure. In this article, we describe router architectures that can support the two trends of rising bandwidth demand and rising demand for differentiated services. We focus on router mechanisms that can support differentiated services at a level not contemplated in proposals currently under consideration due to concern regarding their implementability at high speeds. We consider the types of differentiated services that service providers may want to offer and then discuss the mechanisms needed in routers to support them. We describe plausible implementations of these mechanisms (the scalability and performance of which have been demonstrated by implementation in a prototype system) and argue that it is

Ž. In this paper, we review the basic mechanisms used in packet networks to support Quality-of-Service QoS guarantees. We outline the various approaches that have been proposed, and discuss some of the trade-offs they involve. Specifically, the paper starts by introducing the different scheduling and buffer management mechanisms that can be used to provide service differentiation in packet networks. The aim is not to provide an exhaustive review of existing mechanisms, but instead to give the reader a perspective on the range of options available and the associated trade-off between performance, functionality, and complexity. This is then followed by a discussion on the use of such mechanisms to provide specific end-to-end performance guarantees. The emphasis of this second part is on the need for adapting mechanisms to the different environments where they are to be deployed. In particular, fine grain buffer management and scheduling mechanisms may be neither necessary nor cost effective in high speed backbones, where ‘‘aggregate’ ’ solutions are more appropriate. The paper discusses issues and possible approaches to allow coexistence of different mechanisms in delivering end-to-end