Rate-based Flow Control Scheme Research Articles

Smooth switching problem in buffered crossbar switches

Scalability considerations drive the switch fabric design to evolve from output queueing to input queueing and further to combined input and crosspoint queueing (CICQ). However, few CICQ switches are known with guaranteed quality of service, and credit-based flow control induces a scalability bottleneck. In this paper, we propose a novel CICQ switch called the smoothed buffered crossbar or sBUX, based on a new design objective of smoothness and on a new rate-based flow control scheme called the smoothed multiplexer or sMUX. It is proved that with a buffer of just four cells at each crosspoint, sBUX can utilize 100% of the switch capacity to provide deterministic guarantees of bandwidth and fairness, delay and jitter bounds for each flow. In particular, neither credit-based flow control nor speedup is used, and arbitrary fabric-internal latency is allowed between line cards and the switch core.

Ping-pong flow control for ATM ABR traffic

In this paper, we propose an improved technique for congestion control, named as ping-pong flow control (PPFC), for asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) available bit rate (ABR) traffic. This is a rate-based flow control scheme, in which the rate regulation is achieved by directly adjusting the transmission rate in the source end station. The proposed algorithm uses a bipolar feedback strategy, which employs positive and negative feedbacks to control the transmission rate for different switch states. These states are determined using the traditional threshold-based method. We also introduce state early detection (SED), which enables the PPFC to control traffic flows more precisely and accurately at critical moments. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm provides a higher throughput and lower cell loss ratio when compared to the well-known backward explicit congestion notification (BECN). Furthermore, these results also show that PPFC is robust against feedback losses.

Scheduling and Transport for File Transfers on High-Speed Optical Circuits

Scheduling resources on Grids is a well-known problem. The extension of Grids to LambdaGrids requires the scheduling of lambdas, i.e., end-to-end high-speed circuits. In this paper, we propose a scheduling heuristic for such lambdas in support of large-scale scientific applications that require high-throughput transfers of large files. We refer to this heuristic as ‘Varying-Bandwidth List Scheduling’ (VBLS) because the scheduler returns a Time-Range-Capacity (TRC) allocation vector with varying bandwidth levels assigned for different time ranges within the duration of a transfer. The advantage of VBLS over a fixed-bandwidth allocation scheme is that it allows the scheduler to backfill any holes left in resource allocations. Enabling VBLS requires end host applications to specify the file size in their transfer requests. To characterize VBLS, we ran simulation experiments that show that VBLS performance approaches packet-switching performance. This result means that file transfers can take advantage of bandwidth that becomes available subsequent to the start of transfers, a current and critical drawback of typical fixed-bandwidth allocation schemes in circuit-switched networks. Next, we identify the key features needed in a transport protocol that works in conjunction with VBLS and develop the ‘Varying Bandwidth Transport Protocol’ (VBTP). VBTP is a rate based flow control scheme that is coupled with Selective-ARQ based error control. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion on the impact of transport problems on VBLS scheduling.

Fair flow control of ABR service by per-VC virtual queuing

In this paper, a rate-based flow control scheme based upon per-VC virtual queuing is proposed for the Available Bit Rate (ABR) service in ATM. In this scheme, each VC in a shared buffer is assigned a virtual queue, which is a counter. To achieve a specific kind of fairness, an appropriate scheduler is applied to the virtual queues. Each VC's bottleneck rate (fair share) is derived from its virtual cell departure rate. This approach of deriving a VC's fair share is simple and accurate. By controlling each VC with respect to its virtual queue and queue build-up in the shared buffer, network congestion is avoided. The principle of the control scheme is first illustrated by max–min flow control, which is realised by scheduling the virtual queues in round-robin. Further application of the control scheme is demonstrated with the achievement of weighted fairness through weighted round robin scheduling. Simulation results show that with a simple computation, the proposed scheme achieves the desired fairness exactly and controls network congestion effectively.

Choice of high and low thresholds in the rate-based flow control scheme

In a rate-based flow control scheme, the important issue is how to determine congestion occurrence and congestion relief. The most common method is to set two thresholds of queue length, a high threshold and a low threshold. The values of these two thresholds seriously influence the system performance. Hence the authors present the concept of 'best area' to determine how to set the high and low thresholds to guarantee good performance (i.e. cell loss probability is zero and utilisation is one, if it is possible). Some rules are also given to prevent unnecessary cell loss and under-utilisation, when good performance is not achieved due to too many connections or too large a propagation delay.

Flow control in ATM networks: a survey

In this paper, we present results of a study of flow control in ATM networks. Two classes of flow control are described: preventive and reactive. A preventive control, which uses a static resources allocation, seems inadequate to handle rough traffic in high speed networks. On the other hand, the reactive control schemes, which employ a closed-loop feedback mechanism, seem more attractive than the preventive control schemes, especially in ATM networks. Four ATM service categories are provided to serve a variety of users. To enable each service class to function effectively two closed-loop flow control mechanisms: rate-based and credit-based, have been introduced for ATM networks. Rate-based flow control schemes use the rate of traffic flowing from the source to control the transmission rate. In this paper, a number of variants of rate-based schemes are described and analysed. Credit-based schemes use window flow control where a traffic source is allowed to transmit data only when there is available buffer space in the downstream node. In this paper, a number of credit-based schemes are also described and analysed.

First-order rate-based flow control with dynamic queue threshold for high-speed wide-area ATM networks

In this paper we present a new rate-based flow control scheme for ATM ABR services and analyze its performance. The proposed algorithm, which we refer to as first-order rate-based flow control (FRFC) is the most simple form of queue-length-based flow control. The asymptotic stability, the steady-state throughput, queue length and fairness, and the transient behavior are analyzed for the case of multiple connections with diverse round-trip delays. We also consider a novel approach to dynamically adjust a queue threshold in the FRFC according to the changes in the available bandwidth, and the arrival and departure of connections. Simulations show that the simple FRFC with dynamic queue threshold (DQT) effectively maintains high throughput, small loss and a desired fairness in these dynamic environments and is a promising solution for ABR flow control in ATM networks.

Performance analysis of rate control scheme considering queue dynamics

In high-speed networks with a large bandwidth-delay product, it is very important to effectively control outstanding packets at the source to avoid network breakdown due to buffer overflows. We propose a new rate-based flow control scheme that aims at control of best-effort traffic instead of guaranteed traffic. Our scheme directly controls the rate at which the source can send packets based on feedback information determined by both the average queue length and queue dynamics (queue increase or decrease). We show through analysis and simulation that the rate and queue fluctuations of the proposed scheme can be made much smaller than those of the conventional scheme, based on binary feedback determined by the average queue length. Therefore, efficient network resource utilization and better throughput/delay performance can be easily achieved.

Reliable and efficient hop-by-hop flow control

Hop-by-hop flow control can be used to fairly share the bandwidth of a network among competing flows. No data is lost even in overload conditions; yet each flow gets access to the maximum throughput when the network is lightly loaded. However, some schemes for hop-by-hop flow control require too much memory; some of them are not resilient to errors. The authors propose a scheme for making hop-by-hop flow control resilient and show that it has advantages over the first several schemes proposed by Kung . They also describe a novel method for sharing the available buffers among the flows on a link; the scheme allows to potentially reduce the memory requirement (or increase the number of flows that can be supported) by an order of magnitude. Most of the work is described in the context of an ATM network that uses credit-based flow control. However, the ideas extend to networks in which flows can be distinguished, and to rate-based flow control schemes. >

A control-theoretic approach to flow control

This paper presents a control-theoretic approach to reactive flow control in networks that do not reserve bandwidth. We assume a round-robin-like queue service discipline in the output queues of the network's switches, and propose deterministic and stochastic models for a single conversation in a network of such switches. These models motivate the Packet-Pair rate probing technique, and a provably stable rate-based flow control scheme. A Kalman state estimator is derived from discrete-time state space analysis, but there are difficulties in using the estimator in practice. These difficulties are overcome by a novel estimation scheme based on fuzzy logic. We then present a technique to extract and use additional information from the system to develop a continuous-time system model. This is used to design a variant of the control law that is also provably stable, and, in addition, takes control action as rapidly as possible. Finally, practical issues such as correcting parameter drift and coordination with window flow control are described.

Reliable and efficient hop-by-hop flow control

Hop-by-hop flow control can be used to fairly share the bandwidth of a network among competing flows. No data is lost even in overload conditions; yet each flow gets access to the maximum throughput when the network is lightly loaded. However, some schemes for hop-by-hop flow control require too much memory; some of them are not resilient to errors. We propose a scheme for making hop-by-hop flow control resilient and show that it has advantages over schemes proposed by Kung. We also describe a novel method for sharing the available buffers among the flows on a link; our scheme allows us to potentially reduce the memory requirement (or increase the number of flows that can be supported) by an order of magnitude. Most of the work is described in the context of an ATM network that uses credit based flow control. However our ideas extend to networks in which flows can be distinguished, and to rate based flow control schemes.