Comparisons of packet scheduling algorithms for fair service among connections on the Internet

Abstract

We investigate the performance of TCP under three representatives of packet scheduling algorithms at the router. Our main focus is to investigate how fair service can be provided for elastic applications sharing the link. Packet scheduling algorithms that we consider are FIFO (first in first out), RED (random early detection), and DRR (deficit round robin). Through simulation and analysis results, we discuss the degree of achieved fairness in those scheduling algorithms. Furthermore, we propose a new algorithm which combines RED and DRR algorithms in order to prevent the unfairness property of the original DRR algorithm, which appears in some circumstances where we want to resolve the scalability problem of the DRR algorithm. In addition to the TCP Reno version, we consider TCP Vegas to investigate its capability of providing fairness. The results show that the principle of TCP Vegas conforms to DRR, but it cannot help improving the fairness among connections in FIFO and RED cases, which seems to be a substantial obstacle for the deployment of TCP Vegas.