Scheduling Combined Unicast and Multicast Traffic in Broadcast WDM Networks

This paper studies the performance of various strategies for scheduling a combined load of unicast and multicast traffic in a broadcast WDM network. The performance measure of interest is schedule length, which directly affects both aggregate network throughput and average packet delay. Three different scheduling strategies are presented, namely: separate scheduling of unicast and multicast traffic, treating multicast traffic as a number of unicast messages, and treating unicast traffic as multicasts of size one. A lower bound on the schedule length for each strategy is first obtained. Subsequently, the strategies are compared against each other using extensive simulation experiments in order to establish the regions of operation, in terms of a number of relevant system parameters, for which each strategy performs best. Our main conclusions are as follows. Multicast traffic can be treated as unicast traffic, by replicating all multicast packets, under very limited circumstances. On the other hand, treating unicast traffic as a special case of multicast traffic with a group of size 1, produces short schedules in most cases. Alternatively, scheduling and transmitting each traffic component separately is also a good choice.     

TDMA scheduling algorithms for wireless sensor networks

Algorithms for scheduling TDMA transmissions in multi-hop networks usually determine the smallest length conflict-free assignment of slots in which each link or node is activated at least once. This is based on the assumption that there are many independent point-to-point flows in the network. In sensor networks however often data are transferred from the sensor nodes to a few central data collectors. The scheduling problem is therefore to determine the smallest length conflict-free assignment of slots during which the packets generated at each node reach their destination. The conflicting node transmissions are determined based on an interference graph, which may be different from connectivity graph due to the broadcast nature of wireless transmissions. We show that this problem is NP-complete. We first propose two centralized heuristic algorithms: one based on direct scheduling of the nodes or node-based scheduling, which is adapted from classical multi-hop scheduling algorithms for general ad hoc networks, and the other based on scheduling the levels in the routing tree before scheduling the nodes or level-based scheduling, which is a novel scheduling algorithm for many-to-one communication in sensor networks. The performance of these algorithms depends on the distribution of the nodes across the levels. We then propose a distributed algorithm based on the distributed coloring of the nodes, that increases the delay by a factor of 10–70 over centralized algorithms for 1000 nodes. We also obtain upper bound for these schedules as a function of the total number of packets generated in the network.     

Joint scheduling and power control supporting multicasting in wireless ad hoc networks

This paper addresses the problem of power control in a multihop wireless network supporting multicast traffic. We face the problem of forwarding packet traffic to multicast group members while meeting constraints on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) at the intended receivers. First, we present a distributed algorithm which, given the set of multicast senders and their corresponding receivers, provides an optimal solution when it exists, which minimizes the total transmit power. When no optimal solution can be found for the given set of multicast senders and receivers, we introduce a distributed, joint scheduling and power control algorithm which eliminates the weak connections and tries to maximize the number of successful multicast transmissions. The algorithm allows the other senders to solve the power control problem and minimize the total transmit power. We show that our distributed algorithm converges to the optimal solution when it exists, and performs close to centralized, heuristic algorithms that have been proposed to address the joint scheduling and power control problem.     

Transmission scheduling in a multi‐channel wireless network with bidirectional relaying links

Using network coding in a wireless network can potentially improve the network throughput. On the other hand, it increases the complexity of resource allocations as the quality of one transmission is affected by the link conditions of the transmitter to multiple receivers. In this work, we study time slot scheduling and channel allocations jointly for a network with bidirectional relaying links, where the two end nodes of each link can exchange data through a relay node. Two scenarios are considered when the relay node forwards packets to the end nodes. In the first scenario, the relay node always forwards network‐coded packets to both end nodes simultaneously; in the second scenario, the relay node opportunistically uses network coding for two‐way relaying and traditional one‐way relaying. For each scenario, an optimization problem is first formulated for maximizing the total network throughput. The optimum scheduling is not causal because it requires future information of channel conditions. We then propose heuristic scheduling schemes. The slot‐based scheduling maximizes the total transmission rate of all the nodes at each time slot, and the node‐based scheduling schedules transmissions based on achievable transmission rates of individual nodes at different channels. The node‐based one has lower complexity than the slot‐based one. Our results indicate that although the node‐based scheduling achieves slightly lower throughput than the slot‐based one, both the proposed scheduling schemes are very effective in the sense that the difference between their throughput and the optimum scheduling is relatively small in different network settings. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamic group multicast routing with bandwidth reservations

Multicasting refers to the transmission of data from a source node to multiple destination nodes in a network. Group multicasting is a generalization of multicasting whereby every member of a group is allowed to multicast messages to other members that belong to the same group. The routing problem in this case involves the construction of a set of low cost multicast trees with bandwidth requirements, one for each member of the group for multicasting messages to other members of the group. In this paper, we examine this routing problem with an additional requirement that member nodes are allowed to join and leave the multicasting group anytime during a session. We call this problem, the dynamic group multicast routing problem (DGMRP). In this paper, we proposed three heuristic algorithms to generate a set of low cost multicast trees with dynamic group membership. Results from our empirical study shows that the one of the proposed algorithms, called Maximum bandwidth bottleneck path selection algorithm (MBBPS), achieves better utilization of bandwidth resources as compared with the other two algorithms which are based on a greedy approach. In addition MBBPS performs better in terms of cost when the bandwidth is not sufficient in the network. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shortest route mobility assisted packet delivery with soft maximum delay guarantees in mobile ad hoc networks

In delay tolerant Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) node mobility can be exploited in order to reduce the source–destination path lengths in the expense of higher packet delivery delays. This paper addresses the problem of minimizing the average source–destination path length under a maximum delay constraint for packet delivery which is desirable to certain applications. Imposing packet delivery deadlines results in a certain percentage of multi-hop packet transmissions and poses the practical problem of selecting the optimum moment for the transmission. We propose an Optimal Stopping Rule algorithm for solving this problem and show how this algorithm can be extended in the case that a source–destination route is not always available by relaxing the hard delay constraint to a soft (probabilistic) constraint. The performance of this algorithm is compared to the ideal case of scheduling with perfect knowledge of the future and the trade-off between higher allowable delay and lower average path length is illustrated through several Matlab and ns-2 simulation results. As an application of path length minimization we explain how this can lead to energy consumption minimization in a MANET with light traffic loads (low probability of collisions). Finally, we briefly discuss how this path length minimization algorithm can guide the development of cross-layer throughput maximization algorithms with soft maximum delay guarantees.     

多播路由算法MPH的时间复杂度研究

多播通信是从一个源点同时向网络中的多个成员发送分组的通信服务,一个最小代价的多播路由算法是NP完全的,在时间敏感的应用中其运行时间是一个关键问题.MPH(Minimum Path Cost Heuristic)算法是一个著名的启发式最小代价多播路由算法,本文对该算法进行了理论分析和证明,并做了广泛的仿真实验,结果表明其时间复杂度是O(m²n)而不是过去文献中所给出的O(m²n+e).     

Multihop packet scheduling in WDM/TDM networks with nonnegligibletransceiver tuning times

This paper addresses the design of packet transmission schedules in photonic slotted wavelength-division multiplexing/time-division multiplexing broadcast-and-select networks with W wavelengths and N nodes. Nodes are equipped with one tunable-wavelength transmitter with nonnegligible tuning times and one fixed-wavelength receiver. A new scheduling algorithm that exploits multihop packet transfer to shorten the duration of scheduling periods is first proposed. A single-hop scheduling algorithm that performs slightly better than previous proposals is then described. A simulation-based analysis of the two algorithms shows that they jointly lead to significant improvements in both throughput and delay with respect to previous single-hop schedules     

Priority differentiated multicast flow scheduling method in Ceph cloud storage network

In order to solve the problem that existing flow scheduling method is difficult to meet the different multicast scheduling requirements of multi-service flows in the Ceph cloud storage network,a service priority-based multicast flow scheduling method was tailored.First,the network status was obtained via software defined network (SDN) to support flow scheduling.Then,a multicast task was decomposed into multiple attribute decision problems for multiple unicast path selection,and a method of unicast path selection based on technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) was proposed.The unicast path selection method was used to find the optimal unicast path set for the service flow based on the flow’s network performance requirements.Then,the multicast distribution node was determined by the maximum common sub-path among the optimal unicast path sets for construct a multicast transmission path.The experiment results show that the proposed method can reduce the transmission delay of high priority flows while reduce the redundant traffic and better balance the traffic loads compared with the existing methods.     

Scheduling broadcasts in multihop radio networks

A comprehensive study of the problem of scheduling broadcast transmissions in a multihop, mobile packet radio network is provided that is based on throughput optimization subject to freedom from interference. It is shown that the problem is NP complete. A centralized algorithm that runs in polynomial time and results in efficient (maximal) schedules is proposed. A distributed algorithm that achieves the same schedules is then proposed. The algorithm results in a maximal broadcasting zone in every slot     

Time slot assignment in TDM multicast switching systems

The time slot assignment problem in time-division multiplexed switching systems which can support multicast transmissions is studied. It is shown that this problem is NP-complete, i.e., computationally intractable. Two effective heuristic algorithms are proposed, and computer simulations are also performed to evaluate the performance of both algorithms. The results of the simulations indicate that the solutions generated by these heuristic algorithms are very close to the optimal on the average. In addition, this problem is also examined under a more restrictive condition that the destination sets of any two multicast packets are either identical or disjoint, a situation often encountered in many practical applications. It is proved that this special problem is still NP-complete. Two fast heuristic algorithms are given, which can find solutions not greater than twice the optimal solution. Computer simulations for evaluating these two heuristic algorithms are also performed. Experimental results demonstrate that the solutions of the two algorithms are almost equal to the optimal     

Routing and transmission scheduling for minimizing broadcast delay in multirate wireless mesh networks using directional antennas

Using directional antennas to reduce interference and improve throughput in multihop wireless networks has attracted much attention from the research community in recent years. In this paper, we consider the issue of minimum delay broadcast in multirate wireless mesh networks using directional antennas. We are given a set of mesh routers equipped with directional antennas, one of which is the gateway node and the source of the broadcast. Our objective is to minimize the total transmission delay for all the other nodes to receive a broadcast packet from the source, by determining the set of relay nodes and computing the number and orientations of beams formed by each relay node. We propose a heuristic solution with two steps. Firstly, we construct a broadcast routing tree by defining a new routing metric to select the relay nodes and compute the optimal antenna beams for each relay node. Then, we use a greedy method to make scheduling of concurrent transmissions without causing beam interference. Extensive simulations have demonstrated that our proposed method can reduce the broadcast delay significantly compared with the methods using omnidirectional antennas and single‐rate transmission. In addition, the results also show that our method performs better than the method with fixed antenna beams. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A high-throughput energy-efficient passive optical datacenter network

Datacenter applications impose heavy demands on bandwidth and also generate a variety of communication patterns (unicast, multicast, incast, and broadcast). Supporting such traffic demands leads to networks built with exorbitant facility costs and formidable power consumption if conventional design is followed. In this paper, we propose a novel high-throughput datacenter network that leverages passive optical technologies to efficiently support communications with mixed traffic patterns. Our network enables a dynamic traffic allocation that caters to diverse communication patterns at low power consumption. Specifically, our proposed network consists of two optical planes, each optimized for specific traffic patterns. We compare the proposed network with its optical and electronic counterparts and highlight its potential benefits in terms of facility costs and power consumption reductions. To avoid frame collisions, a high-efficiency distributed protocol is designed to dynamically distribute traffic between the two optical planes. Moreover, we formulate the scheduling process as a mixed integer programming problem and design three greedy heuristic algorithms. Finally, simulation results show that our proposed scheme outperforms the previous POXN architecture in terms of throughput and mean packet delay.     

A fairness adaptive TDMA scheduling algorithm for wireless sensor networks with unreliable links

Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of wireless sensor nodes that organize themselves into multihop radio networks. With different link quality, different distance to the sink, nodes in a network are not treated equally, especially in a network with high traffic. In this paper, we propose a fairness adaptive time division multiple access scheduling algorithm (FATS) considering the fairness of network resource allocation. This algorithm, combining several heuristic algorithms, can assign network resources to the nodes to lead to maximizing the minimum end‐to‐end packet delivery success ratio. Because the wireless link is usually time‐varying, this algorithm can also assign the time slots to the nodes adaptively and energy‐efficiently according to the variation of link quality. We define several criteria for the slot assignment and adjustment. The change in slot assignment can be finished quickly during normal packet transmission, which causes little affect to the network. Meanwhile, considering the required data rate, FATS can achieve the maximum transmission capacity of the network with specified static or dynamic reliability. The simulation results show that the FATS can significantly reduce the difference of the end‐to‐end packet delivery ratio, track the variation of link quality quickly, and achieve the fairness of resource allocation.Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Multipath routing for video delivery over bandwidth-limited networks

The delivery of quality video service often requires high bandwidth with low delay or cost in network transmission. Current routing protocols such as those used in the Internet are mainly based on the single-path approach (e.g., the shortest-path routing). This approach cannot meet the end-to-end bandwidth requirement when the video is streamed over bandwidth-limited networks. In order to overcome this limitation, we propose multipath routing, where the video takes multiple paths to reach its destination(s), thereby increasing the aggregate throughput. We consider both unicast (point-to-point) and multicast scenarios. For unicast, we present an efficient multipath heuristic (of complexity O(|V|/sup 3/)), which achieves high bandwidth with low delay. Given a set of path lengths, we then present and prove a simple data scheduling algorithm as implemented at the server, which achieves the theoretical minimum end-to-end delay. For a network with unit-capacity links, the algorithm, when combined with disjoint-path routing, offers an exact and efficient solution to meet a bandwidth requirement with minimum delay. For multicast, we study the construction of multiple trees for layered video to satisfy the user bandwidth requirements. We propose two efficient heuristics on how such trees can be constructed so as to minimize the cost of their aggregation subject to a delay constraint.     

Multicast capacity of optical ring network with hotspot traffic: The bi-directional WDM packet ring

Packet-switching WDM ring networks with a hotspot transporting unicast, multicast, and broadcast traffic are important components of high-speed metropolitan area networks. For an arbitrary multicast fanout traffic model with uniform, hotspot destination, and hotspot source packet traffic, we analyze the maximum achievable long-run average packet throughput, which we refer to as multicast capacity, of bi-directional shortest path routed WDM rings. We identify three segments that can experience the maximum utilization, and thus, limit the multicast capacity. We characterize the segment utilization probabilities through bounds and approximations, which we verify through simulations. We discover that shortest path routing can lead to utilization probabilities above one half for moderate to large portions of hotspot source multi- and broadcast traffic, and consequently multicast capacities of less than two simultaneous packet transmissions. We outline a one-copy routing strategy that guarantees a multicast capacity of at least two simultaneous packet transmissions for arbitrary hotspot source traffic.     

Burst transmission algorithm to improve packet level performance in contention-free slotted OBS networks

In contention-free slotted optical burst switching (SOBS) networks, controllers are utilized in order to manage the time-slot assignment, avoiding congestions among multiple burst transmissions. In this network, bursts are never lost at intermediate nodes but packets are lost at an ingress edge node due to a burst transmission algorithm. In addition, packet transmission delay increases depending on the algorithm. In order to improve packet level performance, in this paper, we propose a new burst transmission algorithm. In this method, two different thresholds are used; one is used to send a control packet to a controller and the other is used to assemble a burst. With these thresholds, a time slot can be assigned to a burst in advance and packet level performance can be improved. In order to evaluate its packet level performance and investigate the impact of thresholds, we also propose a queueing model of a finite buffer where a batch of packets are served in a slot of a constant length. Numerical results show that our proposed method can decrease packet loss probability and transmission delay with two thresholds. In addition, we show that our analysis results are effective to investigate the performance of the proposed method when the number of wavelengths is large.     

Optimal broadcast scheduling in packet radio networks using meanfield annealing

We present an efficient broadcast scheduling algorithm based on mean field annealing (MFA) neural networks. Packet radio (PR) is a technology that applies the packet switching technique to the broadcast radio environment. In a PR network, a single high-speed wideband channel is shared by all PR stations. When a time-division multi-access protocol is used, the access to the channel by the stations' transmissions must be properly scheduled in both the time and space domains in order to avoid collisions or interferences. It is proven that such a scheduling problem is NP-complete. Therefore, an efficient polynomial algorithm rarely exists, and a mean field annealing-based algorithm is proposed to schedule the stations' transmissions in a frame consisting of certain number of time slots. Numerical examples and comparisons with some existing scheduling algorithms have shown that the proposed scheme can find near-optimal solutions with reasonable computational complexity. Both time delay and channel utilization are calculated based on the found schedules     

Planar graph routing on geographical clusters

Geographic routing protocols base their forwarding decisions on the location of the current device, its neighbors, and the packets destination. Early proposed heuristic greedy routing algorithms might fail even if there is a path from source to destination. In recent years several recovery strategies have been proposed in order to overcome such greedy routing failures. Planar graph traversal was the first of those strategies that does not require packet duplication and memorizing past routing tasks. This article introduces a novel recovery strategy based on the idea of planar graph traversal but performing routing tasks along geographical clusters instead of individual nodes. The planar graph construction method discovered so far needs one-hop neighbor information only, but may produce disconnection even if there is a path from source to destination. However, simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is a good choice from a practical point of view, since disconnection does only concern sparse networks, while in dense network the proposed algorithm competes with existing solutions and even outperforms planar graph routing methods based on one-hop neighbor information. This paper finally gives an outline of further research directions which show that geographical clusters may be the key to solve some problems that come along with planar graph routing in wireless networks.     

Access control in multicast packet switching

Access control and performance for multicast packet switching in a broadband network environment are studied. In terms of scheduling the transmission of the copies of the packet onto output ports, two basic service disciplines are defined: one-shot scheduling (all the copies transmitted in the same time slot) and call splitting (transmission over several time slots). As subcategories of call splitting, SS (strict-sense) specifies that each packet can send at most one copy to the destination per time slot, whereas WS (wide-sense) does not carry this restriction. A scheme called revision scheduling, which mitigates the head-of-line (HOL) blocking effect by sequentially combining the one-shot scheduling and the call splitting disciplines, is proposed. Output contention resolution implementations, in the form of combinational logic circuits designed to resolve output contentions arising in each of the call scheduling disciplines, are introduced. A neural-network-based contention resolution algorithm is proposed to demonstrate the improvement of the optimal scheduling