Time-shift scheduling-fair scheduling of flows in high-speed networks

Abstract

We present a scheduling protocol, called time-shift scheduling, to forward packets from multiple input flows to a single output channel. Each input flow is guaranteed a predetermined packet rate and an upper bound on packet delay. The protocol is an improvement over existing protocols because it satisfies the properties of rate-proportional delay, fairness, and efficiency, while existing protocols fail to satisfy at least one of these properties. In time-shift scheduling each flow is assigned an increasing timestamp, and the packet chosen for transmission is taken from the flow with the least timestamp. The protocol features the novel technique of time shifting, in which the scheduler's real-time clock is adjusted to prevent flow timestamps from increasing faster than the real-time clock. This bounds the difference between any pair of flow timestamps, thus ensuring the fair scheduling of flows.