Multi‐topology routing based egress selection approach to achieve hybrid intra‐AS and inter‐AS traffic engineering

Hot‐potato routing is a border gateway protocol policy that selects the ‘closest’ egress router in terms of interior gateway protocol cost. This policy imposes inherent interactions between intra‐AS (Autonomous System) and inter‐AS traffic engineering. In light of this observation, we present a hybrid intra‐AS and inter‐AS traffic engineering scheme named egress selection based upon hot potato routing. This scheme involves link weight optimization, which can not only minimize the time that IP (Internet Protocol) packets travel across the network by assigning specified egress router but also balance the load among the internal links of the transit network. Egress selection based upon hot potato routing also incorporates multi‐topology routing technique to address the problem that one set of link weights might not guarantee specified egress routers. Accordingly, we formulate the link weights optimization problem using multi‐topology routing as a mixed integer linear programming model. And we present a new heuristic algorithm to make the problem tractable. Numerical results show that only a few topologies are needed to guarantee specified egress router, and maximum link utilization is also reduced. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quality‐of‐Service Mechanisms for Flow‐Based Routers

In this paper, we propose quality of service mechanisms for flow‐based routers which have to handle several million flows at wire speed in high‐speed networks. Traffic management mechanisms are proposed for guaranteed traffic and non‐guaranteed traffic separately, and then the effective harmonization of the two mechanisms is introduced for real networks in which both traffic types are mixed together. A simple non‐work‐conserving fair queuing algorithm is proposed for guaranteed traffic, and an adaptive flow‐based random early drop algorithm is proposed for non‐guaranteed traffic. Based on that basic architecture, we propose a dynamic traffic identification method to dynamically prioritize traffic according to the traffic characteristics of applications. In a high‐speed router system, the dynamic traffic identification method could be a good alternative to deep packet inspection, which requires handling of the IP packet header and payload. Through numerical analysis, simulation, and a real system experiment, we demonstrate the performance of the proposed mechanisms.     

Fair and efficient scheduling for UMTS forward link

This paper presents two scheduling algorithms, MWF²Q+ and MDRR, for multiple classes of service over the same spectrum in the forward link of the UMTS network. These scheduling algorithms can allocate bandwidth in proportion to weights of flows sharing the channel, and assign OVSF code to backlogged flows on a frame‐by‐frame basis. The MWF²Q+ algorithm has better fairness properties while the MDRR algorithm requires less computational complexity and space complexity. The fairness properties of these scheduling algorithms are analysed in this paper. Our simulation results show that these two algorithms support multiple traffic sources with heterogeneous rate guarantees while fully utilizing the system bandwidth. The impact of self‐similar traffic is also addressed in our simulations. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An active scheduling paradigm for open adaptive network environments

Active and programmable networks change the functionality of routers and switches by using agents and active packets. This paper presents a new packet scheduling scheme called Active Scheduling to control and maintain QoS parameters in virtual private networks (VPNs) within the confines of adaptive and programmable networks. In Active Scheduling an agent on the router monitors the accumulated queuing delay for each service. In order to control and to keep the end‐to‐end delay within the bounds, the weights for services are adjusted dynamically by agents on the routers spanning the VPN. If there is an increase or decrease in queuing delay of a service, an agent on a downstream router informs the upstream routers to adjust the weights of their queues. This keeps the end‐to‐end delay of services within the specified bounds and offers better QoS compared to VPNs using static WFQ. The paper describes the algorithm for Active Scheduling, and presents simulation results and these are compared with WFQ. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Enabling novel premium service classes in DiffServ over MPLS‐enabled network

Network resources dimensioning and traffic engineering influence the quality in provisioned services required by the Expedited Forwarding (EF) traffic in production networks established through DiffServ over MPLS‐enabled network. By modeling EF traffic flows and the excess of network resources reserved for it, we derive the range of delay values which are required to support these flows at DiffServ nodes. This enables us to develop an end‐to‐end (e2e) delay budget‐partitioning mechanism and traffic‐engineering techniques within a framework for supporting new premium QoS levels, which are differentiated based on e2e delay, jitter and loss. This framework enables ingress routers to control EF traffic flow admission and select appropriate routing paths, with the goal of EF traffic balancing, avoiding traffic congestion and getting the most use out of the available network resources through traffic engineering. As a result, this framework should enable Internet service providers to provide three performance levels of EF service class to their customers provided that their network is DiffServ MPLS TE aware. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability of a frame-based oldest-cell-first maximal weight matching algorithm

Input-queued cell switches employing the oldest-cell-first (OCF) policy have been shown to yield low mean delay characteristics. Moreover, it has been proven that OCF is stable for admissible traffic conditions when executed with a scheduling speedup of 2. However, as link speeds increase, the computational complexity of these algorithms limits their applicability in high port-density switches and routers. To address the scalability issue, we describe a Frame-Based Maximal Weight Matching (FMWM) algorithm, employing OCF as queue weights, in which a new scheduling decision is issued once every several cell times. Between scheduling decisions, the configuration of the crossbar switch remains unchanged. We further extend the analysis to address the case of multiple classes of service, and prove that the algorithm is stable with an internal buffer transfer speedup of 2, thereby significantly relaxing the timing constraints imposed on the scheduling process.     

Modelling multi‐dimensional QoS: some fundamental constraints

In this paper, we model multi‐dimensional QoS in a unified framework, and study some fundamental constraints from the network and the traffic on realizing multiple QoS goals. Multi‐dimensional QoS requirements are quantitatively represented using a QoS region. Based on the theory of effective bandwidths, the framework connects the throughput, the delay, and the loss rate in a uniform formula. Important traffic and network factors, namely, the burst size and the link speed, are involved. With this framework, it is found that the burst size sets hard limit on the QoS region that can be achieved, and that the matching between the link speed and the node processing power can greatly improve the limit. It is also made clear that while pure load imbalance among links does not affect the QoS region, the heterogeneities of burst size or link speed may severely degrade the QoS performance. Applying the theory to real‐time services in differentiated services architecture, we show it provides a useful tool for QoS prediction and network dimensioning. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A game-based algorithm for fair bandwidth allocation in Fibre-Wireless access networks

Fibre-Wireless (FiWi) access networks have been proposed as flexible and cost-effective solutions for future access networks. At the wireless mesh section, wireless routers have to forward both local traffic from directly connected users and foreign traffic from neighbour wireless routers. How to allocate resources to local and foreign traffic at each router in a balanced way, while avoiding starvation of routers requiring less resources, is a fundamental issue that must be solved so that new services emerge. Here, we develop a repeated game framework for bandwidth allocation and propose an algorithm that allocates bandwidth in a fair manner. The algorithm is able to detect over claiming routers and avoid possible denial of service that these may cause to others. Moreover, unfruitful use of resource is prevented, avoiding the forwarding of packets that would be dropped at some point later in the path, and queueing delay conditions are kept similar among local and foreign traffic. These fair network conditions open way for QoS support since it is easier to ensure the operationality of services.     

Cross‐layer bandwidth and power allocation for a two‐hop link in wireless mesh network

In this paper, a cross‐layer analytical framework is proposed to analyze the throughput and packet delay of a two‐hop wireless link in wireless mesh network (WMN). It considers the adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) process in physical layer and the traffic queuing process in upper layers, taking into account the traffic distribution changes at the output node of each link due to the AMC process therein. Firstly, we model the wireless fading channel and the corresponding AMC process as a finite state Markov chain (FSMC) serving system. Then, a method is proposed to calculate the steady‐state output traffic of each node. Based on this, we derive a modified queuing FSMC model for the relay to gateway link, which consists of a relayed non‐Poisson traffic and an originated Poisson traffic, thus to evaluate the throughput at the mesh gateway. This analytical framework is verified by numerical simulations, and is easy to extend to multi‐hop links. Furthermore, based on the above proposed cross‐layer framework, we consider the problem of optimal power and bandwidth allocation for QoS‐guaranteed services in a two‐hop wireless link, where the total power and bandwidth resources are both sum‐constrained. Secondly, the practical optimal power allocation algorithm and optimal bandwidth allocation algorithm are presented separately. Then, the problem of joint power and bandwidth allocation is analyzed and an iterative algorithm is proposed to solve the problem in a simple way. Finally, numerical simulations are given to evaluate their performances. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Measurement-Based Admission Control at Edge Routers

It is very important to allocate and manage resources for multimedia traffic flows with real-time performance requirements in order to guarantee quality of service (QoS). In this paper, we develop a scalable architecture and an algorithm for admission control of real-time flows. Since individual management of each traffic flow on each transit router can cause a fundamental scalability problem in both data and control planes, we consider that each flow is classified at the ingress router and data traffic is aggregated according to the class inside the core network as in a DiffServ framework. In our approach, admission decision is made for each flow at the edge (ingress) routers, but it is scalable because per-flow states are not maintained and the admission algorithm is simple. In the proposed admission control scheme, an admissible bandwidth, which is defined as the maximum rate of a flow that can be accommodated additionally while satisfying the delay performance requirements for both existing and new flows, is calculated based on the available bandwidth measured by edge routers. The admissible bandwidth is a threshold for admission control, and thus, it is very important to accurately estimate the admissible bandwidth. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated by taking a set of simulation experiments using bursty traffic flows.     

A Per-Flow Based Node Architecture for Integrated Services Packet Networks

As the Internet transforms from the traditional best-effort service network into QoS-capable multi-service network, it is essential to have new architectural design and appropriate traffic control algorithms in place. This paper presents a network node architecture and several traffic management mechanisms that are capable of achieving QoS provisioning for the guaranteed service (GS), the controlled-load (CL) service, and the best-effort (BE) service for future integrated services networks. A key feature of our architecture is that it resolves the out-of-sequence problem associated with the traditional design. We also propose two novel packet discarding mechanisms called selective pushout (SP) and selective pushout plus (SP+). Simulation results show that, once admitted into the network, our architecture and traffic management algorithms provide, under all conditions, hard performance guarantees to GS flows and consistent (or soft) performance guarantees to CL flows, respectively; minimal negative impact to in-profile GS, CL and BE traffic should there be any out-of-profile behavior from some CL flows.     

Deficit round-robin scheduling for input-queued switches

We address the problem of fair scheduling of packets in Internet routers with input-queued switches. The goal is to ensure that packets of different flows leave a router in proportion to their reservations under heavy traffic. First, we examine the problem when fair queuing is applied only at output link of a router, and verify that this approach is ineffective. Second, we propose a flow-based iterative deficit-round-robin (iDRR) fair scheduling algorithm for the crossbar switch that supports fair bandwidth distribution among flows, and achieves asymptotically 100% throughput under uniform traffic. Since the flow-based algorithm is hard to implement in hardware, we finally propose a port-based version of iDRR (called iPDRR) and describe its hardware implementation.     

A Bandwidth Guaranteed Integrated Routing Algorithm in IP over WDM Optical Networks

In this paper, we have developed an integrated online algorithm for dynamic routing of bandwidth guaranteed label switched paths (LSPs) in IP-over-WDM optical networks. Traditionally, routing at an upper layer (e.g., IP layer) is independent of wavelength routing at the optical layer. Wavelength routing at the optical layer sets up a quasi-static logical topology which is then used at the IP layer for IP routing. The coarse-grain wavelength channels and the pre-determined virtual topologies with respect to some a priori assumed traffic distribution are barriers to efficient resource use and inflexible to changing traffic. We take into account the combined knowledge of resource and topology information at both IP and optical layers. With this added knowledge, an integrated routing approach may extract better network efficiencies, be more robust to changing traffic patterns at the IP layer than schemes that either use dynamic routing information at the IP layer or use a static wavelength topology only. LSP set-up requests are represented in terms of a pair of ingress and egress routers as well as its bandwidth requirement, and arrive one-by-one. There is no a priori knowledge regarding the arrivals and characteristics of future LSP set-up requests. Our proposed algorithm considers not only the importance of critical links, but also their relative importance to routing potential future LSP set-up requests by characterizing their normalized bandwidth contribution to routing future LSP requests with bandwidth requirements. Moreover, link residual bandwidth information that captures the link's capability of routing future LSPs is also incorporated into route calculation. Extensive simulation was conducted to study the performance of our proposed algorithm and to compare it with some existing ones, such as the integrated minimum hop routing algorithm and the maximum open capacity routing algorithm. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm performs better than both routing algorithms in terms of the number of LSP set-up requests rejected and the total available bandwidth between router pairs.     

Design of OSPF networks using subpath consistent routing patterns

We address the problem of designing IP networks where the traffic is routed using the OSPF protocol. Routers in OSPF networks use link weights set by an administrator for determining how to route the traffic. The routers use all shortest paths when traffic is routed to a destination, and the traffic is evenly balanced by the routers when several paths are equally short. We present a new model for the OSPF network design problem. The model is based on routing patterns and does not explicitly include OSPF weights. The OSPF protocol is modeled by ensuring that all pairs of routing patterns are subpath consistent, which is a necessary condition for the existence of weights. A Lagrangean heuristic is proposed as solution method, and feasible solutions to the problem are generated using a tabu search method. Computational results are reported for random instances and for real-life instances.     

Evaluating the performance of flood-d: a tool for efficientlyreplicating Internet information services

Internet information services replicate their servers to improve availability, response time, and fault tolerance. Traditional replication algorithms do not address the scale and administrative decentralization of today's internetworks. We have proposed and implemented a scalable and efficient tool to replicate wide-area, autonomously managed services. We target replication degrees of thousands of weakly consistent replicas. The main goal of our replication tool is to make traditional replication services scale in today's exponentially growing, autonomously managed internetworks. Our tool, which we call flood-d, allows servers to be organized in multiple replication groups. For each replication group, flood-d builds a logical update topology that is resilient to server failure, and tries to minimize the communication cost and propagation time needed to transmit updates. Flood-d's logical topologies are computed based on communication latency and available network bandwidth. This paper describes flood-d, and presents simulation results obtained when using flood-d to extend existing replication algorithms. Our results show the gains of organizing service replicas into multiple, smaller replication groups, and using network-cognizant logical topologies to propagate updates. We argue that existing as well as emerging Internet information services can benefit from flood-d's services     

Achieving Resource-Efficient Survivable Provisioning in Service Differentiated WDM Mesh Networks

A resource-efficient provisioning framework (RPF) is proposed in this paper for optical networks providing dedicated path protection (DPP) and shared path protection (SPP) services. The framework reduces resource consumption by considering spare capacity reservation of DPP and SPP cooperatively while provides 100% survivability guarantee and maintains the recovery time for both protection types against the predominant single link failures. To tackle the service provisioning problem under the framework, an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation is presented to find the optimal routing solution for a given set of traffic demands. The objective is to minimize total capacities consumed by working and backup paths of all demands. Then, heuristics are developed for on-line routing under dynamic change of traffic. Numerical results show that compared with traditional provisioning framework (TPF), the RPF has the following advantages: 1) Over 10% capacity savings are achieved for static service provisioning; 2) blocking probability of both protection types is greatly reduced; 3) lower resource overbuild is achieved; and 4) average backup-path hop distance of shared-path-protected flows is reduced. Finally, network survivability in face of double link failures is discussed under the framework.      

Graph coloring based channel assignment framework for rural wireless mesh networks

IEEE 802.11 based wireless mesh networks with directional antennas are expected to be a new promising technology and an economic approach for providing wireless broadband services in rural areas. In this paper, we discuss interference models and address how they can affect the design of channel assignment in rural mesh networks. We present a new channel assignment framework based on graph coloring for rural wireless mesh networks. The goal of the framework is to allow synchronously transmitting or receiving data from multiple neighbor links at the same time, and continuously doing full-duplex data transfer on every link, creating an efficient rural mesh network without interference. Channel assignment is shown to be NP-hard. We frame this channel allocation problem in terms of Adjacent Vertex Distinguishing Edge Coloring （AVDEC）. Detailed assignment results on grid topology are presented and discussed. Furthermore, we design an algorithm. Finally, we evaluate the perform- ance of the proposed algorithm through extensive simulations and show the algorithm is effective to the regular grid topologies, and the number of colors used by the algorithm is upper bounded by A ~ 1. Hence the algorithm guarantees that the number of channels available in standards such as IEEE 802.11a is sufficient to have a valid AVDEC for many grid topologies. We also evaluate the proposed algorithm for arbitrary graphs. The algorithm provides a lower upper bound on the minimum number of channels to the AVDEC index channel assignment problem.     

Dynamic core provisioning for quantitative differentiated services

Efficient network provisioning mechanisms that support service differentiation are essential to the realization of the Differentiated Services (DiffServ) Internet. Building on our prior work on edge provisioning, we propose a set of efficient dynamic node and core provisioning algorithms for interior nodes and core networks, respectively. The node provisioning algorithm prevents transient violations of service level agreements (SLA) by predicting the onset of service level violations based on a multiclass virtual queue measurement technique, and by automatically adjusting the service weights of weighted fair queueing schedulers at core routers. Persistent service level violations are reported to the core provisioning algorithm, which dimensions traffic aggregates at the network ingress edge. The core provisioning algorithm is designed to address the difficult problem of provisioning DiffServ traffic aggregates (i.e., rate-control can only be exerted at the root of any traffic distribution tree) by taking into account fairness issues not only across different traffic aggregates but also within the same aggregate whose packets take different routes through a core IP network. We demonstrate through analysis and simulation that the proposed dynamic provisioning model is superior to static provisioning for DiffServ in providing quantitative delay bounds with differentiated loss across per-aggregate service classes under persistent congestion and device failure conditions when observed in core networks.     

区分服务中一种基于聚集流内部公平性的标记算法

在现今异构刚络Internet,区分服务体系结构通过对不同应用和不同要求的数据流部署不同等级的服务,以提供较大粒度的服务质量(Quality of Service,QoS)保证.不同流之间的公平性问题是区分服务中的研究热点,而标记策略是提高公平性的有效方法.目前许多标记算法只考虑了聚集流之间的公平性,而忽略了聚集流内部流之间的公平性.本文针对同一个聚集流中可能包含不同类型的单个流情况(比如存在自适应TCP流和非适应UDP流、不同速率的多媒体UDP流、采用不同TCP协议的数据流、不同分组大小的数据流),提出了一种基于聚集流内部公平性的标记算法(Fair Aggregate Traffic Marker,FATM).论文构造了不同情况下的模拟场景,并给出了实验的相关参数设置.大量模拟实验结果表明:标记算法FATM在保持聚集流之间的公平性和网络吞吐量的基础上,提高聚集流内部单个流之间的公平性.     

Performance Evaluation of Service‐Aware Optical Transport System

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a service‐aware optical transport system. The proposed service‐aware optical transport system makes a flow based on service type and priority of traffic. The generated flow is mapped to a corresponding sub‐λ for transport over an optical network. Using sub‐λ provided by the centralized control plane, we could effectively provide quality‐of‐service guaranteed Ethernet service and best‐effort service simultaneously in a single link. The committed information rate (CIR) traffic and best‐effort traffic are assigned to different sub‐λs. The bandwidth of the CIR traffic is guaranteed without being affected by violation traffic because the bandwidth is managed per each sub‐λ. The failure detection time and restoration time from a link failure is measured to be about 60 µs and 22 ms, respectively, in the ring network. The measured restoration time is much smaller than the 50 ms industry requirement for real‐time services. The fast restoration time allows the proposed service‐aware optical transport system to offer high availability and reliability which is a requirement for transport networks.