ABC: A Simple Explicit Congestion Controller for Wireless Networks

We propose Accel-Brake Control (ABC), a simple and deployable explicit congestion control protocol for network paths with time-varying wireless links. ABC routers mark each packet with an "accelerate" or "brake", which causes senders to slightly increase or decrease their congestion windows. Routers use this feedback to quickly guide senders towards a desired target rate. ABC requires no changes to header formats or user devices, but achieves better performance than XCP. ABC is also incrementally deployable; it operates correctly when the bottleneck is a non-ABC router, and can coexist with non-ABC traffic sharing the same bottleneck link. We evaluate ABC using a Wi-Fi implementation and trace-driven emulation of cellular links. ABC achieves 30-40% higher throughput than Cubic+Codel for similar delays, and 2.2X lower delays than BBR on a Wi-Fi path. On cellular network paths, ABC achieves 50% higher throughput than Cubic+Codel

An Efficient Framework of Congestion Control for Next-Generation Networks

The success of the Internet can partly be attributed to the congestion control algorithm in the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). However, with the tremendous increase in the diversity of networked systems and applications, TCP performance limitations are becoming increasingly problematic and the need for new transport protocol designs has become increasingly important.Prior research has focused on the design of either end-to-end protocols (e.g., CUBIC) that rely on implicit congestion signals such as loss and/or delay or network-based protocols (e.g., XCP) that use precise per-flow feedback from the network. While the former category of schemes haveperformance limitations, the latter are hard to deploy, can introduce high per-packet overhead, and open up new security challenges. This dissertation explores the middle ground between these designs and makes four contributions. First, we study the interplay between performance and feedback in congestion control protocols. We argue that congestion feedback in the form of aggregate load can provide the richness needed to meet the challenges of next-generation networks and applications. Second, we present the design, analysis, and evaluation of an efficient framework for congestion control called Binary Marking Congestion Control (BMCC). BMCC uses aggregate load feedback to achieve efficient and fair bandwidth allocations on high bandwidth-delaynetworks while minimizing packet loss rates and average queue length. BMCC reduces flow completiontimes by up to 4x over TCP and uses only the existing Explicit Congestion Notification bits.Next, we consider the incremental deployment of BMCC. We study the bandwidth sharing properties of BMCC and TCP over different partial deployment scenarios. We then present algorithms for ensuring safe co-existence of BMCC and TCP on the Internet. Finally, we consider the performance of BMCC over Wireless LANs. We show that the time-varying nature of the capacity of a WLAN can lead to significant performance issues for protocols that require capacity estimates for feedback computation. Using a simple model we characterize the capacity of a WLAN and propose the usage of the average service rate experienced by network layer packets as an estimate for capacity. Through extensive evaluation, we show that the resulting estimates provide good performance

Flowtune: Flowlet Control for Datacenter Networks

Rapid convergence to a desired allocation of network resources to endpoint traffic has been a long-standing challenge for packet-switched networks. The reason for this is that congestion control decisions are distributed across the endpoints, which vary their offered load in response to changes in application demand and network feedback on a packet-by-packet basis. We propose a different approach for datacenter networks, flowlet control, in which congestion control decisions are made at the granularity of a flowlet, not a packet. With flowlet control, allocations have to change only when flowlets arrive or leave. We have implemented this idea in a system called Flowtune using a centralized allocator that receives flowlet start and end notifications from endpoints. The allocator computes optimal rates using a new, fast method for network utility maximization, and updates endpoint congestion-control parameters. Experiments show that Flowtune outperforms DCTCP, pFabric, sfqCoDel, and XCP on tail packet delays in various settings, converging to optimal rates within a few packets rather than over several RTTs. Our implementation of Flowtune handles 10.4x more throughput per core and scales to 8x more cores than Fastpass, for an 83-fold throughput gain

Controlo de congestionamento em redes sem fios

Doutoramento em Engenharia ElectrotécnicaCongestion control in wireless networks is an important and open issue. Previous research has proven the poor performance of the Transport Control Protocol (TCP) in such networks. The factors that contribute to the poor performance of TCP in wireless environments concern its unsuitability to identify/detect and react properly to network events, its TCP window based ow control algorithm that is not suitable for the wireless channel, and the congestion collapse due to mobility. New rate based mechanisms have been proposed to mitigate TCP performance in wired and wireless networks. However, these mechanisms also present poor performance, as they lack of suitable bandwidth estimation techniques for multi-hop wireless networks. It is thus important to improve congestion control performance in wireless networks, incorporating components that are suitable for wireless environments. A congestion control scheme which provides an e - cient and fair sharing of the underlying network capacity and available bandwidth among multiple competing applications is crucial to the definition of new e cient and fair congestion control schemes on wireless multi-hop networks. The Thesis is divided in three parts. First, we present a performance evaluation study of several congestion control protocols against TCP, in wireless mesh and ad-hoc networks. The obtained results show that rate based congestion control protocols need an eficient and accurate underlying available bandwidth estimation technique. The second part of the Thesis presents a new link capacity and available bandwidth estimation mechanism denoted as rt-Winf (real time wireless inference). The estimation is performed in real-time and without the need to intrusively inject packets in the network. Simulation results show that rt-Winf obtains the available bandwidth and capacity estimation with accuracy and without introducing overhead trafic in the network. The third part of the Thesis proposes the development of new congestion control mechanisms to address the congestion control problems of wireless networks. These congestion control mechanisms use cross layer information, obtained by rt-Winf, to accurately and eficiently estimate the available bandwidth and the path capacity over a wireless network path. Evaluation of these new proposed mechanisms, through ns-2 simulations, shows that the cooperation between rt-Winf and the congestion control algorithms is able to significantly increase congestion control eficiency and network performance.O controlo de congestionamento continua a ser extremamente importante quando se investiga o desempenho das redes sem fios. Trabalhos anteriores mostram o mau desempenho do Transport Control Proto- col (TCP) em redes sem fios. Os fatores que contribuem para um pior desempenho do TCP nesse tipo de redes s~ao: a sua falta de capacidade para identificar/detetar e reagir adequadamente a eventos da rede; a utilização de um algoritmo de controlo de uxo que não é adequado para o canal sem fios; e o colapso de congestionamento devido á mobilidade. Para colmatar este problemas foram propostos novos mecanismos de controlo de congestionamento baseados na taxa de transmissão. No entanto, estes mecanismos também apresentam um pior desempenho em redes sem fios, já que não utilizam mecanismos adequados para a avaliação da largura de banda disponível. Assim, é importante para melhorar o desempenho do controlo de congestionamento em redes sem fios, incluir componentes que são adequados para esse tipo de ambientes. Um esquema de controlo de congestionamento que permita uma partilha eficiente e justa da capacidade da rede e da largura de banda disponível entre múltiplas aplicações concorrentes é crucial para a definição de novos, eficientes e justos mecanismos de controlo congestionamento para as redes sem fios. A Tese está dividida em três partes. Primeiro, apresentamos um estudo sobre a avaliação de desempenho de vários protocolos de controlo de congestionamento relativamente ao TCP, em redes sem fios em malha e ad-hoc. Os resultados obtidos mostram que os protocolos baseados na taxa de transmissão precisam de uma técnica de avaliação da largura de banda disponível que seja eficiente e precisa . A segunda parte da Tese apresenta um novo mecanismo de avaliação da capacidade da ligação e da largura de banda disponível, designada por rt-Winf (real time wireless inference). A avaliação é realizada em tempo real e sem a necessidade de inserir tráfego na rede. Os resultados obtidos através de simulação e emulação mostram que o rt-Winf obtém com precisão a largura de banda disponível e a capacidade da ligação sem sobrecarregar a rede. A terceira parte da Tese propõe novos mecanismos de controlo de congestionamento em redes sem fios. Estes mecanismos de controlo de congestionamento apresentam um conjunto de caracter ísticas novas para melhorar o seu desempenho, de entre as quais se destaca a utilização da informação de largura de banda disponível obtida pelo rt-Winf. Os resultados da avaliação destes mecanismos, utilizando o simulador ns-2, permitem concluir que a cooperação entre o rt-Winf e os algoritmos de controlo de congestionamento aumenta significativamente o desempenho da rede

SLBN: A Scalable Max-min Fair Algorithm for Rate-Based Explicit Congestion Control

The growth of the Internet has increased the need for scalable congestion control mechanisms in high speed networks. In this context, we propose a rate-based explicit congestion control mechanism with which the sources are provided with the rate at which they can transmit. These rates are computed with a distributed max-min fair algorithm, SLBN. The novelty of SLBN is that it combines two interesting features not simultaneously present in existing proposals: scalability and fast convergence to the max-min fair rates, even under high session churn. SLBN is scalable because routers only maintain a constant amount of state information (only three integer variables per link) and only incur a constant amount of computation per protocol packet, independently of the number of sessions that cross the router. Additionally, SLBN does not require processing any data packet, and it converges independently of sessions' RTT. Finally, by design, the protocol is conservative when assigning rates, even in the presence of high churn, which helps preventing link overshoots in transient periods. We claim that, with all these features, our mechanism is a good candidate to be used in real deployments

Implementation and performance evaluation of explicit congestion control algorithms

Estágio realizado no INESC-Porto e orientado pelo Eng.º Filipe Lameiro AbrantesTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

NUMFabric: Fast and Flexible Bandwidth Allocation in Datacenters

We present xFabric, a novel datacenter transport design that provides flexible and fast bandwidth allocation control. xFabric is flexible: it enables operators to specify how bandwidth is allocated amongst contending flows to optimize for different service-level objectives such as minimizing flow completion times, weighted allocations, different notions of fairness, etc. xFabric is also very fast, it converges to the specified allocation one-to-two order of magnitudes faster than prior schemes. Underlying xFabric, is a novel distributed algorithm that uses in-network packet scheduling to rapidly solve general network utility maximization problems for bandwidth allocation. We evaluate xFabric using realistic datacenter topologies and highly dynamic workloads and show that it is able to provide flexibility and fast convergence in such stressful environments.Google Faculty Research Awar

On the Performance Evaluation of High-Speed Transport Protocols

As high-speed networks with large bandwidth delay products (BDP) become more common, high-speed transport protocols must be developed that perform well in these contexts. TCP has limitations in high BDP networks. A number of high-speed TCP proposals have emerged, including BIC TCP, High Speed TCP, and H-TCP. XCP is an intraprotocol communication mechanism that promises even greater performance by providing explicit feedback from routers about congestion. It requires changes to routers and end hosts, though, whereas the other experimental protocols only require changes to an end host. We evaluated the performance ofXCP against BIC TCP, High Speed TCP, H-TCP, and . NewReno TCP. We found that in a controlled environment, XCP gave much better performance than the other TCPs. XCP was sensitive to misconfiguration and environmental factors, though, and was more difficult to deploy. More work is required to make XCP more stable. The other TCPs did not perform better than NewReno TCP but show promise, as most performed almost as well as NewReno TCP

Explicit congestion control algorithms for time-varying capacity media

Tese de doutoramento. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200