Network Packet Loss Rate Research Articles

EFT: a high throughput routing metric for IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh networks

In this paper, we present a throughput-maximizing routing metric, referred to as expected forwarding time (EFT), for IEEE 802.11s-based wireless mesh networks. Our study reveals that most of the existing routing metrics select the paths with minimum aggregate transmission time of a packet. However, we show by analyses that, due to the shared nature of the wireless medium, other factors, such as transmission time of the contending nodes and their densities and loads, also affect the performance of routing metrics. We therefore first identify the factors that hinder the forwarding time of a packet. Furthermore, we add a new dimension to our metric by introducing traffic priority into our routing metric design, which, to the best of our knowledge, is completely unaddressed by existing studies. We also show how EFT can be incorporated into the hybrid wireless mesh protocol (HWMP), the path selection protocol used in the IEEE 802.11s draft standard. Finally, we study the performance of EFT through simulations under different network scenarios. Simulation results show that EFT outperforms other routing metrics in terms of average network throughput, end-to-end delay, and packet loss rate.

Cost-effective combination of contention resolution/avoidance schemes in bufferless slotted OPS networks

Contention is a major problem for Optical Packed Switched (OPS) networks. Many studies have shown that to obtain a very small optical packet loss rate, a large number of specific contention resolution or contention avoidance hardware must be used. However, this may not be so cost-effective. Instead of using the same technique to achieve a very low packet loss rate, the idea of this paper is to use the combination of different contention avoidance and contention resolution schemes, but using a lower amount of each scheme, to reduce packet loss rate in slotted bufferless OPS networks. A number of cost-effective contention resolution and avoidance schemes are studied in order to decrease traffic loss and increase TCP throughput as a result. Designing a multi-fiber architecture that uses inexpensive shared-per-node wavelength converters and additional drop-ports can significantly reduce network-wide traffic loss. The lost traffic can also be retransmitted in the optical domain in order to have a loss-free OPS network. A cost model is also provided to obtain cost-effective combinations of fibers, wavelength converters and drop ports under a desirable TCP throughput and investment on network hardware. The effectiveness of the combined contention avoidance and resolution schemes are demonstrated under Internet traffic.

Cross-Layer Design of an Energy-Efficient Cluster Formation Algorithm with Carrier-Sensing Multiple Access for Wireless Sensor Networks

A new energy-efficient scheme for data transmission in a wireless sensor network (WSN) is proposed, having in mind a typical application including a sink, which periodically triggers the WSN, and nodes uniformly distributed over a specified area. Routing, multiple access control (MAC), physical, energy, and propagation aspects are jointly taken into account through simulation; however, the protocol design is based on some analytical considerations reported in the appendix. Information routing is based on a clustered self-organized structure; a carrier-sensing multiple access (CSMA) protocol is chosen at MAC layer. Two diffierent scenarios are examined, characterized by diffierent channel fading rates. Four versions of our protocol are presented, suitably oriented to the two diffierent scenarios; two of them implement a cross-layer (CL) approach, where MAC parameters influence both the network and physical layers. Performance is measured in terms of network lifetime (related to energy efficiency) and packet loss rate (related to network availability). The paper discusses the rationale behind the selection of MAC protocols for WSNs and provides a complete model characterization spanning from the network layer to the propagation channel. The advantages of the CL approach, with respect to an algorithm which belongs to the well-known class of low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocols, are shown.

Network layer packet redundancy in optical packet switched networks

A crucial issue in optical packet switched (OPS) networks is packet losses at the network layer caused by contentions. This paper presents the network layer packet redundancy scheme (NLPRS), which is a novel approach to reduce the end-to-end data packet loss rate in OPS networks. By introducing redundancy packets in the OPS network, the NLPRS enables a possible reconstruction of data packets that are lost due to contentions. An analytical model of the NLPRS based on reduced load Erlang fix-point analysis is presented. Simulations of an OPS ring network show that the NLPRS is in particular efficient in small networks operating at low system loads. Results also show how the arrival process, packet length distribution, network size and redundancy packet scheduling mechanism influence the NLPRS performance.

A survey and measurement-based comparison of bandwidth management techniques

This article gives a brief tutorial for bandwidth management systems; a survey of the techniques used by eight real-world systems, such as class-based queuing (CBQ), per-flow queuing (PFQ), random early detection (RED), and TCP rate control (TCR); a compact testbed with a set of methodologies to differentiate the employed techniques; and a detailed black-box evaluation. The tutorial describes the needs for the three types of policy rules: class-based bandwidth limitation, session-bandwidth guarantee, and inter/intra-class bandwidth borrowing. The survey portion investigates how the eight chosen commercial/open-source real systems enforce the three policy types. To evaluate the techniques, the designed testbed emulates real-life Internet conditions, such as many simultaneous sessions from different IPs/ports, controllable wide area network (WAN) delay and packet loss rate for each session, and different TCP source implementations. The performance metrics include accuracy of bandwidth management, fairness among sessions, robustness under Internet packet losses and different operating systems, inter/intra-class bandwidth borrowing, and voice over IP (VoIP) quality. The black-box test results demonstrate that (1) only the combination of CBQ+PFQ+TCR can solve the most difficult scenario (multiple sessions competing for the narrow 20kb/s class); (2) the TCR approach may degrade the goodput, fairness, and compatibility even under slight packet loss rates (0.5 percent); (3) without PFQ, TCR and RED have limited ability to isolate the sessions (especially for RED); (4) the G.729 VoIP quality over a 125kb/s access link becomes good only after exercising MSS-clamping to shrink the packet size of the background traffic down to 256 byte.