Feedback control for router congestion resolution

Abstract

Queueing is a crucial component in effective router congestion control. If packets are dropped indiscriminately by the queueing system, in some cases, the effect can be to encourage senders to actually increase their transmission rates, worsening the congestion and destabilizing the system. We approach this congestion problem from the point of view of the elementary concepts of game theory and control theory. We provide a queueing mechanism with feedback-control. Our analysis shows that the protocol achieves high throughput as well as fairness in allocating capacity among sources, while maintaining bounded queue lengths and responding dynamically to changes in network flow conditions. Perhaps most importantly, the new protocol is shown in network simulations to have superior ability (compared with previous solutions) to protect responsive flows (specifically TCP) against router flooding by multiple high-volume unresponsive (e.g., UDP) flows.

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