Performance Modelling and Optimisation of Multi-hop Networks

A major challenge in the design of large-scale networks is to predict and optimise the total time and energy consumption required to deliver a packet from a source node to a destination node. Examples of such complex networks include wireless ad hoc and sensor networks which need to deal with the effects of node mobility, routing inaccuracies, higher packet loss rates, limited or time-varying effective bandwidth, energy constraints, and the computational limitations of the nodes. They also include more reliable communication environments, such as wired networks, that are susceptible to random failures, security threats and malicious behaviours which compromise their quality of service (QoS) guarantees. In such networks, packets traverse a number of hops that cannot be determined in advance and encounter non-homogeneous network conditions that have been largely ignored in the literature. This thesis examines analytical properties of packet travel in large networks and investigates the implications of some packet coding techniques on both QoS and resource utilisation. Specifically, we use a mixed jump and diffusion model to represent packet traversal through large networks. The model accounts for network non-homogeneity regarding routing and the loss rate that a packet experiences as it passes successive segments of a source to destination route. A mixed analytical-numerical method is developed to compute the average packet travel time and the energy it consumes. The model is able to capture the effects of increased loss rate in areas remote from the source and destination, variable rate of advancement towards destination over the route, as well as of defending against malicious packets within a certain distance from the destination. We then consider sending multiple coded packets that follow independent paths to the destination node so as to mitigate the effects of losses and routing inaccuracies. We study a homogeneous medium and obtain the time-dependent properties of the packet’s travel process, allowing us to compare the merits and limitations of coding, both in terms of delivery times and energy efficiency. Finally, we propose models that can assist in the analysis and optimisation of the performance of inter-flow network coding (NC). We analyse two queueing models for a router that carries out NC, in addition to its standard packet routing function. The approach is extended to the study of multiple hops, which leads to an optimisation problem that characterises the optimal time that packets should be held back in a router, waiting for coding opportunities to arise, so that the total packet end-to-end delay is minimised

Sharp Bounds in Stochastic Network Calculus

The practicality of the stochastic network calculus (SNC) is often questioned on grounds of potential looseness of its performance bounds. In this paper it is uncovered that for bursty arrival processes (specifically Markov-Modulated On-Off (MMOO)), whose amenability to \textit{per-flow} analysis is typically proclaimed as a highlight of SNC, the bounds can unfortunately indeed be very loose (e.g., by several orders of magnitude off). In response to this uncovered weakness of SNC, the (Standard) per-flow bounds are herein improved by deriving a general sample-path bound, using martingale based techniques, which accommodates FIFO, SP, EDF, and GPS scheduling. The obtained (Martingale) bounds gain an exponential decay factor of ${\mathcal{O}}(e^{-\alpha n})$ in the number of flows $n$. Moreover, numerical comparisons against simulations show that the Martingale bounds are remarkably accurate for FIFO, SP, and EDF scheduling; for GPS scheduling, although the Martingale bounds substantially improve the Standard bounds, they are numerically loose, demanding for improvements in the core SNC analysis of GPS

EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON QUEUEING THEORY 2016

International audienceThis booklet contains the proceedings of the second European Conference in Queueing Theory (ECQT) that was held from the 18th to the 20th of July 2016 at the engineering school ENSEEIHT, Toulouse, France. ECQT is a biannual event where scientists and technicians in queueing theory and related areas get together to promote research, encourage interaction and exchange ideas. The spirit of the conference is to be a queueing event organized from within Europe, but open to participants from all over the world. The technical program of the 2016 edition consisted of 112 presentations organized in 29 sessions covering all trends in queueing theory, including the development of the theory, methodology advances, computational aspects and applications. Another exciting feature of ECQT2016 was the institution of the Takács Award for outstanding PhD thesis on "Queueing Theory and its Applications"

Non-asymptotic performance evaluation and sampling-based parameter estimation for communication networks with long memory traffic

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Delay Bound: Fractal Traffic Passes through Network Servers

Delay analysis plays a role in real-time systems in computer communication networks. This paper gives our results in the aspect of delay analysis of fractal traffic passing through servers. There are three contributions presented in this paper. First, we will explain the reasons why conventional theory of queuing systems ceases in the general sense when arrival traffic is fractal. Then, we will propose a concise method of delay computation for hard real-time systems as shown in this paper. Finally, the delay computation of fractal traffic passing through severs is presented