Active Queue Management for Fair Resource Allocation in Wireless Networks

This paper investigates the interaction between end-to-end flow control and MAC-layer scheduling on wireless links. We consider a wireless network with multiple users receiving information from a common access point; each user suffers fading, and a scheduler allocates the channel based on channel quality,but subject to fairness and latency considerations. We show that the fairness property of the scheduler is compromised by the transport layer flow control of TCP New Reno. We provide a receiver-side control algorithm, CLAMP, that remedies this situation. CLAMP works at a receiver to control a TCP sender by setting the TCP receiver's advertised window limit, and this allows the scheduler to allocate bandwidth fairly between the users

Mesmerizer: A Effective Tool for a Complete Peer-to-Peer Software Development Life-cycle

In this paper we present what are, in our experience, the best practices in Peer-To-Peer(P2P) application development and how we combined them in a middleware platform called Mesmerizer. We explain how simulation is an integral part of the development process and not just an assessment tool. We then present our component-based event-driven framework for P2P application development, which can be used to execute multiple instances of the same application in a strictly controlled manner over an emulated network layer for simulation/testing, or a single application in a concurrent environment for deployment purpose. We highlight modeling aspects that are of critical importance for designing and testing P2P applications, e.g. the emulation of Network Address Translation and bandwidth dynamics. We show how our simulator scales when emulating low-level bandwidth characteristics of thousands of concurrent peers while preserving a good degree of accuracy compared to a packet-level simulator

On the Design of an Immersive Environment for Security-Related Studies

The Internet has become an essential part of normal operations of both public and private sectors. Many security issues are not addressed in the original Internet design, and security now has become a large concern for networking research and study. There is an imperative need to have an simulation environment that can be used to help study security-related research problems. In the thesis we present our effort to build such an environment: Real-time Immersive Network Simulation Environment (RINSE). RINSE features flexible configuration of models using various networking protocols and real-time user interaction. We also present the Estimate Next Infection (ENI) model we developed for Internet scanning worms using RINSE, and the effort of combining multiple resolutions in worm modeling

Theories and Models for Internet Quality of Service

We survey recent advances in theories and models for Internet Quality of Service (QoS). We start with the theory of network calculus, which lays the foundation for support of deterministic performance guarantees in networks, and illustrate its applications to integrated services, differentiated services, and streaming media playback delays. We also present mechanisms and architecture for scalable support of guaranteed services in the Internet, based on the concept of a stateless core. Methods for scalable control operations are also briefly discussed. We then turn our attention to statistical performance guarantees, and describe several new probabilistic results that can be used for a statistical dimensioning of differentiated services. Lastly, we review recent proposals and results in supporting performance guarantees in a best effort context. These include models for elastic throughput guarantees based on TCP performance modeling, techniques for some quality of service differentiation without access control, and methods that allow an application to control the performance it receives, in the absence of network support

Trade & Cap: A Customer-Managed, Market-Based System for Trading Bandwidth Allowances at a Shared Link

We propose Trade & Cap (T&C), an economics-inspired mechanism that incentivizes users to voluntarily coordinate their consumption of the bandwidth of a shared resource (e.g., a DSLAM link) so as to converge on what they perceive to be an equitable allocation, while ensuring efficient resource utilization. Under T&C, rather than acting as an arbiter, an Internet Service Provider (ISP) acts as an enforcer of what the community of rational users sharing the resource decides is a fair allocation of that resource. Our T&C mechanism proceeds in two phases. In the first, software agents acting on behalf of users engage in a strategic trading game in which each user agent selfishly chooses bandwidth slots to reserve in support of primary, interactive network usage activities. In the second phase, each user is allowed to acquire additional bandwidth slots in support of presumed open-ended need for fluid bandwidth, catering to secondary applications. The acquisition of this fluid bandwidth is subject to the remaining "buying power" of each user and by prevalent "market prices" – both of which are determined by the results of the trading phase and a desirable aggregate cap on link utilization. We present analytical results that establish the underpinnings of our T&C mechanism, including game-theoretic results pertaining to the trading phase, and pricing of fluid bandwidth allocation pertaining to the capping phase. Using real network traces, we present extensive experimental results that demonstrate the benefits of our scheme, which we also show to be practical by highlighting the salient features of an efficient implementation architecture.National Science Foundation (CCF-0820138, CSR-0720604, EFRI-0735974, CNS-0524477, and CNS-0520166); Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana and COLCIENCIAS–Instituto Colombiano para el Desarrollo de la Ciencia y la Tecnología “Francisco Jose ́ de Caldas”

Mean-Field-Type Games in Engineering

A mean-field-type game is a game in which the instantaneous payoffs and/or the state dynamics functions involve not only the state and the action profile but also the joint distributions of state-action pairs. This article presents some engineering applications of mean-field-type games including road traffic networks, multi-level building evacuation, millimeter wave wireless communications, distributed power networks, virus spread over networks, virtual machine resource management in cloud networks, synchronization of oscillators, energy-efficient buildings, online meeting and mobile crowdsensing.Comment: 84 pages, 24 figures, 183 references. to appear in AIMS 201

Advances in Internet Quality of Service

We describe recent advances in theories and architecture that support performance guarantees needed for quality of service networks. We start with deterministic computations and give applications to integrated services, differentiated services, and playback delays. We review the methods used for obtaining a scalable integrated services support, based on the concept of a stateless core. New probabilistic results that can be used for a statistical dimensioning of differentiated services are explained; some are based on classical queuing theory, while others capitalize on the deterministic results. Then we discuss performance guarantees in a best effort context; we review: methods to provide some quality of service in a pure best effort environment; methods to provide some quality of service differentiation without access control, and methods that allow an application to control the performance it receives, in the absence of network support

Layering as Optimization Decomposition: Questions and Answers

Network protocols in layered architectures have historically been obtained on an ad-hoc basis, and much of the recent cross-layer designs are conducted through piecemeal approaches. Network protocols may instead be holistically analyzed and systematically designed as distributed solutions to some global optimization problems in the form of generalized Network Utility Maximization (NUM), providing insight on what they optimize and on the structures of network protocol stacks. In the form of 10 Questions and Answers, this paper presents a short survey of the recent efforts towards a systematic understanding of "layering" as "optimization decomposition". The overall communication network is modeled by a generalized NUM problem, each layer corresponds to a decomposed subproblem, and the interfaces among layers are quantified as functions of the optimization variables coordinating the subproblems. Furthermore, there are many alternative decompositions, each leading to a different layering architecture. Industry adoption of this unifying framework has also started. Here we summarize the current status of horizontal decomposition into distributed computation and vertical decomposition into functional modules such as congestion control, routing, scheduling, random access, power control, and coding. We also discuss under-explored future research directions in this area. More importantly than proposing any particular crosslayer design, this framework is working towards a mathematical foundation of network architectures and the design process of modularization