Self-coordinating localized fair queueing in wireless ad hoc networks

Distributed fair queueing in a multihop, wireless ad hoc network is challenging for several reasons. First, the wireless channel is shared among multiple contending nodes in a spatial locality. Location-dependent channel contention complicates the fairness notion. Second, the sender of a flow does not have explicit information regarding the contending flows originated from other nodes. Fair queueing over ad hoc networks is a distributed scheduling problem by nature. Finally, the wireless channel capacity is a scarce resource. Spatial channel reuse, i.e., simultaneous transmissions of flows that do not interfere with each other, should be encouraged whenever possible. In this paper, we reexamine the fairness notion in an ad hoc network using a graph-theoretic formulation and extract the fairness requirements that an ad hoc fair queueing algorithm should possess. To meet these requirements, we propose maximize-local-minimum fair queueing (MLM-FQ), a novel distributed packet scheduling algorithm where local schedulers self-coordinate their scheduling decisions and collectively achieve fair bandwidth sharing. We then propose enhanced MLM-FQ (EMLM-FQ) to further improve the spatial channel reuse and limit the impact of inaccurate scheduling information resulted from collisions. EMLM-FQ achieves statistical short-term throughput and delay bounds over the shared wireless channel. Analysis and extensive simulations confirm the effectiveness and efficiency of our self-coordinating localized design in providing global fair channel access in wireless ad hoc networks.     

An active queue management scheme based on a capture-recapture model

One of the challenges in the design of switches/routers is the efficient and fair use of the shared bottleneck bandwidth among different Internet flows. In particular, various active queue management (AQM) schemes have been developed to regulate transmission control protocol traffic in response to router congestion. In addition, in order to provide fair bandwidth sharing, these AQM must protect the well-behaved flows from the misbehaving flows. However, most of the existing AQM schemes cannot provide accurate fair bandwidth sharing while being scalable. The key to the scalability and fairness of the AQM schemes is the accurate estimation of certain network resources without keeping too much state information. We propose a novel technique to estimate two network resource parameters: the number of flows in the buffer and the data source rate of a flow by using a capture-recapture (CR) model. The CR model depends on simply the random capturing/recapturing of the incoming packets, and as a result, it provides a good approximation tool with low time/space complexity. These network resource parameters are then used to provide fair bandwidth sharing among the Internet flows. Our experiments and analysis will demonstrate that this new technique outperforms the existing mechanisms and closely approximates the "ideal" case, where full state information is needed.     

Efficiency-fairness tradeoff in telecommunications networks

Introducing the concept of /spl alpha/-fairness, which allows for a bounded fairness compromise, so that no source is allocated less than a fraction /spl alpha/ of its fair share, this letter studies tradeoffs between efficiency (utilization, throughput or revenue) and fairness in a general telecommunications network with relation to any fairness criterion. We formulate a linear program that finds the optimal bandwidth allocation by maximizing efficiency subject to /spl alpha/-fairness constraints. This leads to what we call an efficiency-fairness curve, which shows the benefit in efficiency as a function of the extent to which fairness is compromised.     

A topology-independent wireless fair queueing model in ad hoc networks

Fair queueing of rate and delay-sensitive packet flows in a shared-medium, multihop wireless network is challenging due to the unique design issues. These issues include: 1) spatial contention among transmitting flows in a spatial locality, as well as spatial reuse of bandwidth through concurrent flow transmissions in different network locations; 2) conflicts between ensuring fairness and maximizing spatial channel reuse; and 3) the distributed nature of ad hoc fair queueing. In this paper, we propose a new topology-independent fair queueing model for a shared-medium ad hoc network. Our fairness model ensures coordinated fair channel access among spatially contending flows, while seeking to maximize spatial reuse of bandwidth. We describe packetized algorithms that realize the fluid fairness model with analytical performance bounds. We further design a distributed implementation which approximates the ideal centralized algorithm. We present simulations and analysis on the performance of our proposed algorithms.     

Fairness and Load Balancing in Wireless LANs Using Association Control

The traffic load of wireless LANs is often unevenly distributed among the access points (APs), which results in unfair bandwidth allocation among users. We argue that the load imbalance and consequent unfair bandwidth allocation can be greatly reduced by intelligent association control. In this paper, we present an efficient solution to determine the user-AP associations for max-min fair bandwidth allocation. We show the strong correlation between fairness and load balancing, which enables us to use load balancing techniques for obtaining optimal max-min fair bandwidth allocation. As this problem is NP-hard, we devise algorithms that achieve constant-factor approximation. In our algorithms, we first compute a fractional association solution, in which users can be associated with multiple APs simultaneously. This solution guarantees the fairest bandwidth allocation in terms of max-min fairness. Then, by utilizing a rounding method, we obtain the integral solution from the fractional solution. We also consider time fairness and present a polynomial-time algorithm for optimal integral solution. We further extend our schemes for the on-line case where users may join and leave dynamically. Our simulations demonstrate that the proposed algorithms achieve close to optimal load balancing (i.e., max-min fairness) and they outperform commonly used heuristics.     

On network bandwidth sharing for transporting rate‐adaptive packet video using feedback

While existing research shows that feedback‐based congestion control mechanisms are capable of providing better video quality and higher link utilization for rate‐adaptive packet video, there has been relatively little study on how to share network bandwidth among competing rate‐adaptive video connections, when feedback control is used in a fully distributed network. This paper addresses this issue by presenting a framework of network bandwidth sharing for transporting rate‐adaptive packet video using feedback. We show how a weight‐based bandwidth sharing policy can be used to allocate network bandwidth among competing video connections and design a feedback control algorithm using an Available Bit Rate (ABR)‐like flow control mechanism. A novel video source rate adaptation algorithm is also introduced to decouple a video source's actual transmission rate from the rate used for distributed protocol convergence. Our feedback control algorithm provides guaranteed convergence and smooth source rate adaptation to our weight‐based bandwidth sharing policy under any network configuration and any set of link distances. Finally, we show the on‐line minimum rate renegotiation and weight adjustment options in our feedback control algorithm, which offer further flexibility in network bandwidth sharing for video connections. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A game theoretic framework for bandwidth allocation and pricing inbroadband networks

In this paper, we present a game theoretic framework for bandwidth allocation for elastic services in high-speed networks. The framework is based on the idea of the Nash bargaining solution from cooperative game theory, which not only provides the rate settings of users that are Pareto optimal from the point of view of the whole system, but are also consistent with the fairness axioms of game theory. We first consider the centralized problem and then show that this procedure can be decentralized so that greedy optimization by users yields the system optimal bandwidth allocations. We propose a distributed algorithm for implementing the optimal and fair bandwidth allocation and provide conditions for its convergence. The paper concludes with the pricing of elastic connections based on users' bandwidth requirements and users' budget. We show that the above bargaining framework can be used to characterize a rate allocation and a pricing policy which takes into account users' budget in a fair way and such that the total network revenue is maximized     

Fair distributed congestion control in multirate multicast networks

We study fairness of resource allocation in multirate, multicast networks. In multirate networks, different receivers of the same multicast session can receive service at different rates. We develop a mathematical framework to model the maxmin fair allocation of bandwidth with minimum and maximum rate constraints. We present a necessary and sufficient condition for a rate allocation to be maxmin fair in a multirate, multicast network. We propose a distributed algorithm for computing the maxmin fair rates allocated to various source-destination pairs. This algorithm has a low message exchange overhead, and is guaranteed to converge to the maxmin fair rates in finite time.     

Bandwidth sharing and admission control for elastic traffic

We consider the performance of a network like the Internet handling so‐called elastic traffic where the rate of flows adjusts to fill available bandwidth. Realized throughput depends both on the way bandwidth is shared and on the random nature of traffic. We assume traffic consists of point to point transfers of individual documents of finite size arriving according to a Poisson process. Notable results are that weighted sharing has limited impact on perceived quality of service and that discrimination in favour of short documents leads to considerably better performance than fair sharing. In a linear network, max–min fairness is preferable to proportional fairness under random traffic while the converse is true under the assumption of a static configuration of persistent flows. Admission control is advocated as a necessary means to maintain goodput in case of traffic overload. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

A stateless fairness-driven active queue management scheme for efficient and fair bandwidth allocation in congested Internet routers

Fair bandwidth sharing is important for the Internet architecture to be more accommodative of the heterogeneity. The Internet relies primarily on the end-systems to cooperatively deploy congestion control mechanisms for achieving high network utilization and some degree of fairness among flows. However, the cooperative behavior may be abandoned by some end-systems that act selfishly to be more competitive through bandwidth abuse. The result can be severe unfairness and even congestion collapse. Fairness-driven active queue management, thus, becomes essential for allocating the shared bottleneck bandwidth fairly among competing flows. This paper proposes a novel stateless active queue management algorithm, termed CHOKeH, to enforce fairness in bottleneck routers. CHOKeH splits the queue into dynamic regions at each packet arrival and treats each region differently for performing matched-drops using a dynamically updated drawing factor, which is based on the level of queue occupancy and the buffer size. In this way, CHOKeH can effectively identify and restrict unfair flows from dominating the bandwidth by discarding more packets from these flows. The performance of CHOKeH is studied through extensive simulations. The results demonstrate that CHOKeH is well suited for fair bandwidth allocation even in the presence of multiple unresponsive flows and across a wider range of buffer sizes. The results also show the ability of CHOKeH to provide inter-protocol and intra-protocols fairness and protection for short-lived flows. With a low per-packet-processing complexity, CHOKeH is amenable to implementation in core routers to offer an effective incentive structure for end-systems to self-impose some form of congestion control.     

Auction-Based Bandwidth Allocation in Multi-Hop Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we propose a multi-hop auction-based bandwidth allocation mechanism to address the flow contention problem in wireless ad hoc networks. By modeling the problem as an iterative auction-based structure, it enables us to derive fair and efficient bandwidth allocation to each node on the basis of only local information. Further, a multi-hop flow coordination mechanism is then developed to optimize the network performance. Simulation results suggest that the proposed mechanism outperforms other approaches in terms of network throughput, bandwidth utilization, fairness, end-to-end delay, packet loss rate, and robustness.     

DQDB networks with and without bandwidth balancing

It is explained why long distributed queue dual bus (DQDB) networks without bandwidth balancing can have fairness problems when several nodes are performing large file transfers. The problems arise because the network control information is subject to propagation delays that are much longer than the transmission time of a data segment. Bandwidth balancing is then presented as a simple solution. By constraining each node to take only a certain fraction of the transmission opportunities offered to it by the basic DQDB protocol, bandwidth balancing gradually achieves a fair allocation of bandwidth among simultaneous file transfers. Two ways to extend this procedure effectively to multipriority traffic are proposed     

Session-aware popularity-based resource allocation for assureddifferentiated services

Differentiated services networks are fair in the way that different types of traffic can be associated to different network services, and so to different quality levels. However, fairness among flows sharing the same service, may, not be provided. Our goal is to study fairness between scalable multimedia sessions for assured DS services in a multicast network environment. To achieve this goal, we present a fairness mechanism called session-aware popularity-based resource allocation (SAPRA), which allocates resources to scalable. sessions based on their number of receivers. Simulation results in a scalable and multireceiver scenario show that SAPRA maximizes the utilization, of bandwidth and the number of receivers with high-quality reception     

Utility Max-Min Flow Control Using Slope-Restricted Utility Functions

We present a network architecture for the distributed utility max-min flow control of elastic and nonelastic flows where utility values of users (rather than data rates of users) are enforced to achieve max-min fairness. The proposed link algorithm converges to utility max-min fair bandwidth allocation in the presence of round-trip delays without using the information of users' utility functions. To show that the proposed algorithm can be stabilized not locally but globally, we found that the use of nonlinear control theory is inevitable. Even though we use a distributed flow-control algorithm, it is shown that any kind of utility function can be used as long as the minimum slopes of the functions are greater than a certain positive value. Though our analysis is limited to the single-bottleneck and homogeneous-delay case, we believe that the proposed algorithm is the first to achieve utility max-min fairness with guaranteed stability in a distributed manner     

Approximate fair bandwidth sharing in high-speed multimedia networks

Existing fair-queuing algorithms use complicated flow management mechanisms, thus making them expensive to deploy in current high-bandwidth networks. In this paper we propose a scalable SCORE (stateless core) approach to provide fair bandwidth sharing for a traffic environment composed of TCP and UDP flows. At an edge router, the arrival rates of each flow are estimated, each packet then being labelled with this estimate. The outgoing link’s fair share at a router is estimated based on UDP traffic. Probabilistic dropping is used to regulate those flows that send more than the fair share. At a core router, all the functions performed by an edge router are repeated, excluding the flow rate estimation. The simulation results show that the degree of fairness achieved by the proposed solution is comparable to that of other algorithms, but with a lower implementation cost.     

基于边界到边界带宽估计的数据包标记器

提出了一种基于带宽估计的标记算法，我们称之为BEBM(baadwidth estimation based marking)。它跟踪网络中可利用带宽的动态变化，对可利用带宽进行估计，并以一种按比例的方式在各个汇聚流之间公平地重新分配网络中的可利用带宽。我们通过仿真试验对算法进行了验证，并与其它几种标记算法进行比较，结果 证实BEBM算法比其它几种算法具有更好的公平性以及更高的链路利用率。     

Dynamic Bandwidth Management in Single-Hop Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

Distributed weighted fair scheduling schemes for Quality of Service (QoS) support in wireless local area networks have not yet become standard. Therefore, we propose an Admission Control and Dynamic Bandwidth Management scheme that provides fairness and a soft rate guarantee in the absence of distributed MAC-layer weighted fair scheduling. This scheme is especially suitable for smart-rooms where peer-to-peer multimedia transmissions need to adapt their transmission rates co-operatively. We present a mapping scheme to translate the bandwidth requirements of an application into its channel time requirements. The center piece of our scheme is a Bandwidth Manager, which allots each flow a share of the channel, depending on the flow's requirements relative to the requirements of other flows in the network. Admitted flows control their transmission rates so they only occupy the channel for the fraction of time allotted to them. Thus co-operation between flows is achieved and the channel time is fair shared. As the available channel capacity changes and the traffic characteristics of various flows change, the Bandwidth Manager dynamically re-allocates the channel access time to the individual flows. Our simulation experiments show that, at a very low cost and with high probability, every admitted flow in the network will receive at least its minimum requested share of the network bandwidth. We also present extensive testbed experiments with our scheme using a real-time audio streaming application running between Linux laptops equipped with standard IEEE 802.11 network cards.     

RPR环网中的一种带宽公平分配算法

首先讨论了RPR网络中的公平性原则,然后结合该原则引入了一种适合于RPR网络的公平分配方案,基于该方案提出了一种能满足RPR环网性能要求的公平分配算法。该算法通过采用控制的方法为共享某链路的各数据流合理地分配带宽资源,从而达到:(1)各流的速率达到稳定;(2)链路缓存的占有量稳定到一个目标值;(3)链路带宽得到充分利用且实现公平分配。同时该算法能顺次协同地处理完网络中的各个链路,从而能够实现整个RPR环网的公平性与高的链路带宽利用率,达到RPR协议所要求的目标。给出了该算法的代码描述并对其作出稳定性分析,然后通过仿真对其性能进行了验证。     

Fair Bandwidth Allocation in Optical Burst Switching Networks

Optical burst switching (OBS) is a promising switching technology for next-generation Internet backbone networks. One of the design challenges is how to provide fair bandwidth allocation in OBS networks; the schemes proposed for general store-and-forward IP switching networks can not be used because of the non-buffering and un-fully utilized bandwidth characteristics of OBS networks. We propose a rate fairness preemption (RFP) scheme to achieve approximately weighted max-min fair bandwidth allocation in OBS networks. We present an analysis of the burst loss probability in RFP-based OBS networks. The analysis and simulation results show that the RFP scheme provides fair bandwidth allocation in OBS networks.      

MrFair: Misbehavior-resistant fair scheduling in wireless mesh networks

It is a critical issue to ensure that nodes and/or flows have fair access to the network bandwidth in wireless mesh networks (WMNs). However, current WMNs based on IEEE 802.11 exhibit severe unfairness. Several scheduling schemes have been proposed to ensure fairness in WMNs. Unfortunately, all of them implicitly trust nodes in the network, and thus are vulnerable to the misbehavior of nodes participating in scheduling. In this paper, we address the threats to fair scheduling in WMNs resulting from node misbehavior and present a generic verification framework to detect such misbehavior. Moreover, we develop two verification schemes based on this framework for distributed and centralized authentication environments, respectively. We validate our approach by extending an existing fair scheduling scheme and evaluating it through simulation. The results show that our approach improves misbehavior detection with light performance overhead.