An approximation to max min fairness in multi commodity networks

Abstract

The two objectives of max min fairness (MMF) in multi commodity networks are maximizing the overall throughput so the network operator is satisfied when network is utilized, and minimizing the overall difference in throughput between commodities satisfying the users with fair bandwidth allocation. These two objectives are conflicting, so are translated into a bi-objective model where throughput is maximized in one objective, and the difference in flow between commodities is minimized in the other objective. The proposed approach in this paper is meant to handle large scale networks since the common approaches are feasible only on small to medium scale networks. Although the solution is an approximation to MMF, but it can be exact to the MMF solution when ɛ is properly selected. An illustrative example is discussed in addition to experimentations on real and random networks. The experimentations show the effectiveness of the proposed model.