Packet-by-packet Generalized Processor Sharing Research Articles

Carry-over round robin: a simple cell scheduling mechanism for ATM networks

We propose a simple mechanism named carry-over round robin (CORR) for scheduling cells in asynchronous transfer mode networks. We quantify the operational complexity of CORR scheduling and show that it is comparable to that of a simple round-robin scheduler. We then show that, albeit its simplicity, CORR is very competitive with much more sophisticated and significantly more complex scheduling disciplines in terms of performance. We evaluate the performance of CORR using both analysis and simulation, We derive analytical bounds on the worst case end-to-end delay achieved by a CORR scheduler for different traffic arrival patterns. Using traffic traces from MPEG video streams, we compare the delay performance of CORR with that of packet-by-packet generalized processor sharing (PGPS) and stop-and-go (SG). Our results show that, in terms of delay performance, CORR compares favorably with both PGPS and SG. We also analyze the fairness properties of CORR and show that it achieves near perfect fairness.

A schedulability condition for deadline-ordered service disciplines

In a deadline-ordered service discipline, packets are assigned transmission deadlines and eligibility times and are transmitted in increasing order of deadlines. Different deadline-ordered service disciplines are distinguished by how they calculate deadlines and eligibility times. One of the more difficult analytical problems one faces when designing a new deadline-ordered service discipline is to prove that one can bound the end of transmission times of packets relative to their assigned deadlines, which we call schedulability. We show that, no matter how one calculates deadlines, there is a simple schedulability condition for deadline-ordered service disciplines. This schedulability condition is necessary and sufficient for preemptive deadline-ordered service disciplines, and for a server that allows the presence of nonreal-time packets (i.e., packets with no deadlines), it is also necessary and sufficient for nonpreemptive deadline-ordered service disciplines. We also address the schedulability problem for service disciplines in general, and show the optimality of deadline-ordered service disciplines. To demonstrate how our results simplify schedulability determination, we use them to prove the known schedulability conditions of VirtualClock, Packet-by-Packet Generalized Processor Sharing (PGPS), Stop-and-Go, and Delay-Earliest-Due-Date (Delay-EDD), and to provide a new result, the necessary schedulability condition of VirtualClock.

Multirate scheduling of VBR video traffic in ATM networks

One of the major attractions of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks for transporting bursty video traffic is its ability to exploit the multiplexing gains of packet switching while providing quality of service guarantees. Unfortunately, most of the multiplexing mechanisms proposed in the literature fail to exploit the multiplexing gains of ATM. We propose a multirate service mechanism that allows a session to be served at different rates at different times. Applications generating bursty data, such as variable bit-rate (VBR) video, can take advantage of multirate service by requesting a high rate of service for brief periods of bursty arrivals and a much lower rate of service for all other times. Consequently, the applications can improve their delay performance without reserving a high bandwidth for the entire duration of the sessions. Furthermore, the scheduler can multiplex the peaks and the lulls in service rates of different sessions and improve the utilization of the system. Using MPEG video traces from a number of applications, we show that multirate servers outperform single-rate PGPS (packet-by-packet generalized processor sharing) servers and CBR (constant bit-rate) servers in terms of number of connections admitted, while providing the same level of service guarantees. We also investigate the performance of multirate service when service quality need not be guaranteed. We refer to this as predictive service. We propose a measurement-based admission control procedure for predictive service, and show that it helps increase the size of the admissible region even further.

Generalized Processor Sharing Networks with Exponentially Bounded Burstiness Arrivals

We consider virtual circuit packet switching communication networks that employ processor sharing type service disciplines and study their stability when the offered traffic to the network has exponentially bounded burstiness (EBB). The advantages of processor sharing switching techniques both in terms of service flexibility and the potential capability to guarantee certain grades of service, were emphasized in [7]. The study presented there assumes that the traffic offered to the network is flow-controlled by the leaky-bucket mechanism, and the performance of both generalized processor sharing (GPS) and packet-by-packet generalized processor sharing (PGPS) is analyzed.In this paper we employ an exponential characterization (EBB) introduced in [11] to analyze this type of systems in a stochastic setting. We first examine the GPS and PGPS servers in isolation, and demonstrate their superiority to a general server in the stochastic environment. We then show that a network of servers, that are all either GPS or PGPS, is stable whenever the service rate of each node is larger than the total arrival rate to it. In addition, we provide exponential upper bounds to the traffic flows within the network links, and to the backlogs of each session in the various nodes on its path.