In this paper we develop a simple analytic characterization of the steady state throughput, as a function of loss rate and round trip time for a bulk transfer TCP flow, i.e., a flow with an unlimited amount of data to send. Unlike the models in [6, 7, 10], our model captures not only the behavior of TCP’s fast retransmit mechanism (which is also considered in [6, 7, 10]) but also the effect of TCP’s timeout mechanism on throughput. Our measurements suggest that this latter behavior is important from a modeling perspective, as almost all of our TCP traces contained more timeout events than fast retransmit events. Our measurements demonstrate that our model is able to more accurately predict TCP throughput and is accurate over a wider range of loss rates. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grants NCR-95-08274, NCR-95-23807 and CDA-95-02639. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Click is a new software architecture for building flexible and configurable routers. A Click router is assembled from packet processing modules called elements. Individual elements implement simple router functions like packet classification, queueing, scheduling, and interfacing with network devices. A router configuration is a directed graph with elements at the vertices; packets flow along the edges of the graph. Configurations are written in a declarative language that supports user-defined abstractions. This language is both readable by humans and easily manipulated by tools. We present language tools that optimize router configurations and ensure they satisfy simple invariants. Due to Click’s architecture and language, Click router configurations are modular and easy to extend. A standards-compliant Click IP router has sixteen elements on its forwarding path. We present extensions to this router that support dropping policies, fairness among flows, quality-of-service, and

This paper considers the potentially negative impacts of an increasing deployment of non-congestion-controlled best-effort traffic on the Internet.’ These negative impacts range from extreme unfairness against competing TCP traffic to the potential for congestion collapse. To promote the inclusion of end-to-end congestion control in the design of future protocols using best-effort traffic, we argue that router mechanisms are needed to identify and restrict the bandwidth of selected high-bandwidth best-effort flows in times of congestion. The paper discusses several general approaches for identifying those flows suitable for bandwidth regulation. These approaches are to identify a high-bandwidth flow in times of congestion as unresponsive, “not TCP-friendly,” or simply using disproportionate bandwidth. A flow that is not “TCP-friendly ” is one whose long-term arrival rate exceeds that of any conformant TCP in the same circumstances. An unresponsive flow is one failing to reduce its offered load at a router in response to an increased packet drop rate, and a disproportionate-bandwidth flow is one that uses considerably more bandwidth than other flows in a time of congestion.

We discuss findings from a large-scale study of Internet packet dynamics conducted by tracing 20 000 TCP bulk transfers between 35 Internet sites. Because we traced each 100-kbyte transfer at both the sender and the receiver, the measurements allow us to distinguish between the end-toend behaviors due to the different directions of the Internet paths, which often exhibit asymmetries. We: 1) characterize the prevalence of unusual network events such as out-of-order delivery and packet replication; 2) discuss a robust receiver-based algorithm for estimating “bottleneck bandwidth ” that addresses deficiencies discovered in techniques based on “packet pair;” 3) investigate patterns of packet loss, finding that loss events are not well modeled as independent and, furthermore, that the distribution of the duration of loss events exhibits infinite variance; and 4) analyze variations in packet transit delays as indicators of congestion periods, finding that congestion periods also span a wide range of time scales.

State of the art, real-time, rate-adaptive, multimedia applications adjust their transmission rate to match the available network capacity. Unfortunately, this source-based rate-adaptation performs poorly in a heterogeneous multicast environment because there is no single target rate --- the conflicting bandwidth requirements of all receivers cannot be simultaneously satisfied with one transmission rate. If the burden of rate-adaption is moved from the source to the receivers, heterogeneity is accommodated. One approach to receiver-driven adaptation is to combine a layered source coding algorithm with a layered transmission system. By selectively forwarding subsets of layers at constrained network links, each user receives the best quality signal that the network can deliver. We and others have proposed that selective-forwarding be carried out using multiple IP-Multicast groups where each receiver specifies its level of subscription by joining a subset of the groups. In this paper, we ...

This paper discusses the use of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) mechanisms in the TCP/IP protocol. The first part proposes new guidelines for TCP’s response to ECN mechanisms (e.g., Source Quench packets, ECN fields in packet headers). Next, using simulations, we explore the benefits and drawbacks of ECN in TCP/IP networks. Our simulations use RED gateways modified to set an ECN bit in the IP packet header as an indication of congestion, with Reno-style TCP modified to respond to ECN as well as to packet drops as indications of congestion. The simulations show that one advantage of ECN mechanisms is in avoiding unnecessary packet drops, and therefore avoiding unnecessary delay for packets from low-bandwidth delay-sensitive TCP connections. A second advantage of ECN mechanisms is in networks (generally LANs) where the effectiveness of TCP retransmit timers is limited by the coarse granularity of the TCP clock. The paper also discusses some implementation issues concerning specific ECN mechanisms in TCP/IP networks.

In this paper, we analyze a performance model for the TCP Congestion Avoidance algorithm. The model predicts the bandwidth of a sustained TCP connection subjected to light to moderate packet losses, such as loss caused by network congestion. It assumes that TCP avoids retransmission timeouts and always has sufficient receiver window and sender data. The model predicts the Congestion Avoidance performance of nearly all TCP implementations under restricted conditions and of TCP with SelectiveAcknowledgements over a much wider range of Internet conditions. We verify

This paper discusses the use of link-sharing mechanisms in packet networks and presents algorithms for hierarchical link-sharing. Hierarchical link-sharing allows multiple agencies, protocol families, or traflic types to share the bandwidth on a tink in a controlled fashion. Link-sharing and real-time services both require resource management mechanisms at the gateway. Rather than requiring a gateway to implement separate mechanisms for link-sharing and real-time services, the approach in this paper is to view link-sharing and real-time service requirements as simultaneous, and in some respect complementary, constraints at a gateway that can be implemented with a unified set of mechanisms. White it is not possible to completely predict the requirements that might evolve in the Internet over the next decade, we argue that controlled link-sharing is an essential component that can provide gateways with the flexibility to

We propose an optimization approach to flow control where the objective is to maximize the aggregate source utility over their transmission rates. We view network links and sources as processors of a distributed computation system to solve the dual problem using gradient projection algorithm. In this system sources select transmission rates that maximize their own benefits, utility minus bandwidth cost, and network links adjust bandwidth prices to coordinate the sources' decisions. We allow feedback delays to be different, substantial and time-varying, and links and sources to update at different times and with different frequencies. We provide asynchronous distributed algorithms and prove their convergence in a static environment. We present measurements obtained from a preliminary prototype to illustrate the convergence of the algorithm in a slowly time-varying environment.

We propose a new design for highly concurrent Internet services, whichwe call the staged event-driven architecture (SEDA). SEDA is intended