A new TCP/AQM for stable operation in fast networks

Abstract

This paper is aimed at designing a congestion control system that scales gracefully with network capacity, providing high utilization, low queueing delay, dynamic stability, and fairness among users. In earlier work we had developed fluid-level control laws that achieve the first three objectives for arbitrary networks and delays, but were forced to constrain the resource allocation policy. In this paper we extend the theory to include dynamics at TCP sources, preserving the earlier features at fast time-scales, but permitting sources to match their steady-state preferences, provided a bound on round-trip-times is known. We develop two packet-level implementations of this protocol, using (i) ECN marking, and (ii) queueing delay, as means of communicating the congestion measure from links to sources. We discuss parameter choices and demonstrate using ns-2 simulations the stability of the protocol and its equilibrium features in terms of utilization, queueing and fairness. We also demonstrate the scalability of these features to increases in capacity, delay, and load, in comparison with other deployed and proposed protocols.

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