Charge Allocation Concept for Fairer Resource
Sharing in Best-Effort Network
Yaser Miaji and Suhaidi Hassan
InternetWorks Research Group, UUM College of Arts and Sciences,
University Utara Malaysia, 06010 UUM Sintok, MALAYSIA.
yaser@gmail.com, suhaidi@ieee.org
Abstract-The potential increase in the popularity of greedy
software such as download accelerator software and greedy
application such as P2P leads to a significant demands for
reconstruction of the old fashion max-min fairness definition.
Furthermore, these applications and software monopolize
network bandwidth and hence result in magnificent degrada-
tion in the performance of real-time application such as VOIP,
video conferencing and IPTV. This paper intends to
introduce new fairness concept based on charge allocation in
oppose of bandwidth allocation. This idea is discussed and
analyzed conceptually and analytically with comparison to
the famous Weighted Fair Queueing. The result shows
impressive increases in fairness and protection of resource
sharing. This research stimulates and redirects researcher
attention to another dimension.
I. INTRODUCTION
Network and Internet nowadays, are the most powerful
tools for academic, public facilities, leisure, hospital and
everyone everywhere. Its popularity is increased in daily
basis with the introduction of less cost service, software
and even hardware. This excessive boom leads to potential
lack in resources; therefore, those gigantesque clients
deliberately endeavor to achieve larger resources than they
deserve and hence accelerate their download, browsing and
so forth. Consequently, users utilize malicious programs
and applications such as download accelerator programs
and P2P. The use of such programs and application shall
be with the sacrifice of others, particularly with the most
sensitive application such as real-time application.
Scheduling mechanism plays a central responsibility in
remedy such issue and protect these application and hence
regular users from those misbehaved [1]. However,
scheduler themselves suffer from insufficient functionality
due to an old fashion and restricted law of fairness. These
antiquated concepts are ineffectively serve packets and
result in limitation in the ability of real-time application [2].
This tragic impact is the consequence of the utilization of
the old concept of fairness and protection namely; max-
min fairness by Demers et al. [3]. Although there are
several other fairness notions have proposed in the
literature such as proportional fairness and balanced
fairness [4-6], all of them are primarily based on
bandwidth allocation. Therefore, max-min fairness is
discussed in this paper since it is the most deployment
notion. This paper proposes different concept or in other
words the opposition of bandwidth allocation. It rather
proposes the charge allocation.
The rest of the paper is organized as following. Next
section demonstrates some background in the topic which
followed by a discussion section in the max-min fairness
and its weakness with simulation support. Section IV
proposes the max-min charge concept and its mathematics.
Section V conceptually and analytically compares the
conventional fairness concept with the proposed. The final
section concludes the paper.
II. BACKGROUND
The Internet is considered as a best effort network since it
heavily depends on Internet Protocol (IP) which has a
primary concept of best-effort. By the concept of best-
effort IP tend to deliver the packets with no guarantee and
no reliability. However, such behavior could potentially
harm some real-time application such Voice Over IP
(VOIP) and Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) which are
quite popular in these days.
On the other hand, Routing in datagram network requires
subtle and rigorous procedure since it involves congestion
control which is complicated with the presence of the
conflict between the reliable Transport Control Protocol
(TCP) and the best effort and no guarantee Internet
Protocol (IP). Figure 2.1 shows some categorization of the
strategies used for congestion control. Among those
strategies, scheduling mechanism is the potential specially,
for real-time application to achieve the Quality of Service
(QoS) criterion.
Congestion
Control
Close Loop Open Loop
Explicit Implicit Source
Scheduling
Destination
Mechanism
Figure 2.1: Congestion control categorization
Scheduling mechanism provide implicit congestion control
with its meticulous chore. However, the ultimate mission
of scheduling discipline has not been precisely met due to
some weakness in the essential component of the
mechanism which called fairness.
The principle of fairness is based on max-min criterion
which first introduced by Demers in 1989 [3] and no
further modification or update have been integrated in this
definition since that time. This definition depends on three
elements. Which is been discussed in section III. Later in
the literature, scholars evolve the first fair queueing
mechanism introduces by Negle [7-9] but the fairness
principle remain the same.
The most famous scheduling mechanism in the literature is
Weighted Fair Queueing (WFQ) [3]. WFQ occupies the
max-min, indeed, it is the first scheduling mechanism
which introduces this concept. Primarily, it attempts to
approximate General Process Sharing (GPS) model which
considered as the optimum resource sharing model.
However, WFQ does not achieve its promises as claimed
by Bennett [10]. The study result of Bennett shows that
WFQ fall behind GPS several packets and hence, its
fairness is weak. Therefore, Bennett proposes his
mechanism which named as Worst case Weighted Fair
Queueing (WF2Q) [11]. Unfortunately, WF2Q appears as
unimplemented in real world due to its complexity.
Another distinct mechanism is Self Clocked Fair Queueing
(SCFQ) [12]. This mechanism establishes a novel concept
with much less system complexity by introducing the
principle of approximation. The Authors allege that the
virtual finish time could be estimated from the virtual time
for the current packet in service and thus no overhead
calculation is considered necessary. Nevertheless, this
estimation does not meet the minimum fairness required to
achieve QoS for real-time application.
There are tens of mechanisms proposed in the literature to
achieve the optimum level of all scheduling properties
which are; fairness, protection, bounding delay, flexibility
and simplicity [13, 14]. However, all of these mechanisms
adopt the same fairness mechanism which is max-min
fairness. This paper is presenting a new concept which
could stimulate the research thinking and diverse their
studies.
III. MAX-MIN FAIRNESS
3.1 The principle of max-min fairness
The max-min concept is defines as the maximization of the
minimum fair share of the bandwidth. Fairness in the
network resource sharing with the concept of max-min
generally, should encounter three basic conditions. Firstly,
resources are allocated in increasing order of the demand.
Secondly, no user receives more than their demands.
Finally, users with unsatisfied demands obtain equal shares.
There could be another condition which weight assigns to
each user.
Figure 3-1 present an example of implementing max-min
algorithm. Let assume that we have total bandwidth of 1
and the demands of the users are and
the total number of users are N. Notice that users demand
could exceed the available resource as in equation 2.1,
however, the total resource is distributed fairly among
users.
2.1
= total demand
, individual demand
Therefore, according to max-min fairness, if all the
demands are equals and there is no weight for any of the
users, each user shall get even though, the sum of their
demands could exceed the available bandwidth which is 1
in this case.
Figure 3-1: mix-min concept
Now, let assume that user 1 has a demand of which is
less than . Consequently, the remaining bandwidth is
will be divided among all users. Therefore, the fair
share for each user will be . The same
algorithm will applied for all other users which mean that
if their demands are less than what is assigned to them,
they will just get their demand and the remaining will be
divided fairly among others.
Now let take a numerical example. Let assume that there
are three users. First user demand 5 units, second user
demand 8 units and the last demands 10 units and the total
network resource is 18 units. Obviously, the sum of their
demands is 23 which are more than the available
bandwidth. According to max-min rule each user will get
which is equal to 6. However, the demand for the first
user is 5 and hence according to max-min, first user will
get just what it demand which is equal to 5. Therefore,
there is one remaining unit which will be divided equally
among the other two users. As a consequence, the second
and the third user will receive 6.5 each and since 6.5 is less
than the demand of the second and the third users’ demand,
they will get equal share.
These three main conditions of max-min fairness regulate
the concept. However, even though it tightens the max-min
principle and provides reasonable link-share fairness, there
are some weaknesses and breaches which could be
exploited from greedy user and allow more bandwidth
allocation to them. These weaknesses are been identified
and elaborated in next sub-section.
3.2 Max-min and scheduling mechanism
Max-min principle has tightened packet transmission by
occupying the three conditions. So, how these rules could
be applied in scheduling mechanisms? In this section WFQ
is adopted to exemplify the utilization of max-min concept
in scheduling mechanisms since WFQ is most widely used Now let us take this scenario which is given in figure 3.1,
scheduler and is considered as the basis for all scheduling consider that is a small packet (VOIP) arrived in
mechanisms. session i at time with size of and at a bursty stream of
WFQ is primarily based on max-min principle and assigns 3 long size (FTP) packets arrived at session
weighted for the flows, so, there will some management of j at time , respictively. Furthermore, since
the promptness of the packet transmission. Furthermore, by packet rate for session i is second packet is
providing weight, WFQ is indeed, imposing an anticipated to be arrived at . Now, the virtual finishing
enhancement for QoS for real-time applications as packets time for each packet before the arrival of in flow based
from such sensitive applications are assigned higher weight. WFQ is:
So, how the cooperation between scheduling mechanism 3.4
and max-min is been implemented? WFQ as an example of
most scheduling mechanisms in the literature, implements
the max-min and the scheduling as following. Virtual 3.5
finishing time is calculated for each packet according to
packet length, flow rate, virtual finishing time of previous 3.6
packet and the access time of current packet as in equation
3.1.
3.7
3.1
Notice that:
F = Virtual finish time for the previous packet, a = Virtual
arrival time, = weight assigned to the session and L =
packet length
for all packets and sessions since IP precedence
Consequently, there are two cases. Firstly, if IP precedence (TOS) is not active in flow based WFQ.
(Type of Service (TOS)) is applied, packets with TOS,
which apparently sensitive applications, is been transmitted depend on not on as in the
first. Secondly, in the absence of TOS, packets with case of since is higher than .
minimum vertical finishing time are served first.
Referring to equation 3.3 the new virtual finishing time for
Apparantely, the length of the packet plays an important
session j would be:
role and hence sensitive application such as real-time and
telnet packets are served first as they have smaller packet 3.8
size (see equation 3.2).
3.9
3.2
3.10
Now, let us examine the scheduling of the arrival of bursty
traffic with long size packet in a single session (flow) and a When packet arrived in session i at , its is
constant rate real-time traffic such as VOIP by posing the calculated as following:
scenario shown in figure 3.1. The behavior of Constant Bit
Rate (CBR) of real-time traffic is about 64Kbps if Pulse 3.11
Coded Modulation (PCM) is been used [15]. Furthermore,
the average packet size is about 80bytes. However, in the Therefore, although . This has been
case of non-sensitive traffics such as FTP, its bit rate is demonstrated in figure 3.3. Consequently, WFQ with max-
varies and unpredictable and the average packet size is min principle is supportive for QoS for real-time
about 512 bytes. application. Furthermore, in the presence of IP precedence
(TOS), the previous mentioned statement shall be much
Assume that there are two users i and j are sending various
enhanced since TOS will provide prioritization property.
packets. User i is sending small packets with CBR of and
packet size of . The other user j is sending long size
packets with bursty behavior and for simplicity we assume Pi,1 Pj,1 Pj,3 Pj,4, Pi,2
that it is sending packets every with the rate of Packet virtual access
time (a) ta1 ta2 ta3 ta4
every and packet length of .
Pi,1 Pj,1 Pi,2 Pj,3
Suppose that the mean size of real-time packets is times Packet virtual
smaller than the second user, we assume that departure time (d) td1 td2 td3 td4
3.3
Figure 3.3: timeframe for virtual access and finishing time for the packets

Notice that
= maximum packet size eligible for transmission in
link . Furthermore, it is all usually assigned as 1500B by
default.
3.3 Weakness of max-min fairness principle
Under the previous mentioned concepts and conditions, all
packets will be treated equally and QoS will not be
provided. Therefore, assigning a weight for each user
could apply some Quality of Service to the algorithm.
Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ) proposed by Demers [3]
provides such functions. However, in the presence of
congestion, WFQ will assign the same weight for all the
flows or in other words it would be a fair queuing. This
section reveals three primary weakness of max-min which
has been exploited form malicious user to monopolize the
bandwidth.
3.3.1 Small packet predicament
Misbehaved users could establish a connection and keep
sending packets with smaller size than other applications
and hence, they will be eventually allocated more
bandwidth than others. For example, the smallest packet
size for telnet, which is probably very small, is about 45
bytes including the IP header of 20 bytes and TCP header
of 20 bytes. That means the data in this packet according to
real data taken using Snoop, in figure 3.1 is 5 bytes1.
If we have taken in account that this specific packet has
used the minimum size of TCP header and its data is about
5 bytes, we will estimate that the reiteration of such packet
is rare in the network. Consequently, greedy users could
send packet with minimum data and bursty behavior and
consequently, will be allocated more bandwidth than
others. This could be implemented in faster downloading
of a webpage using multiply HTTP connection for each
object in the page. This assumption is been proofed in next
sub-section using simulation aids.
Figure 1.3: IP packet for telnet application
Let take this scenario, consider a link shared by two users
. is a misbehaved user establishing multiple
connections (HTTP for example). Moreover, assume that
sending small packets with fixed length of and with a
bursty behavior. is a normal user establish VOIP
connection with packet length of . Notice that
VOIP packets are normally not less than 80 bytes [16]2.
1
Note that this is a mean size not the minimum size. Minimum size of
data included in telnet packet could be as small as 1 byte.
2
The assumption of 80 bytes ignores the header compression since
misbehaved user could perform it as well.
Consequently, according to max-min principle and
equation 3.1, . Therefore, will suffer from
delay since at least two packets from will be served
before the departure of packets.
3.3.2 Congestion predicament
According to max-min principle and conditions, in the
occurrence of congestion all packets will be treated equally
and this will be with the tradeoff for real-time application
and hence QoS is not supported in such situation. In other
words, sensitive application such as real-time application
will not receive any priority over the others in the
occurrence of congestion which leads to enormous
degradation in its reliability and performance.
3.3.3 Concurrent connection predicament
Concurrent connection is misbehaved attitudes which
recently gather attention by various users and several
software have been designed to efficiently accomplish such
behavior. Even though, users are not aware of the
unfairness caused due to the utilization of such software,
these greedy application should be stopped by imposing
network mechanism on them and hence, users will not use
it anymore. Next section is designed to explore the
previous mentioned three issues with examples and
simulation support.
IV. MAX-MIN CHARGE
Section III reveals the weakness of max-min principle and
the inefficient fairness and protection provided by it
adoption in scheduling mechanism. This weakness is
exposed after the development in computer and network
applications such as the greedy software and the real-time
applications. Therefore, there are demands for a new
principle to be adopted which effectively provides better
fairness and higher protection.
Max-min charge is proposed in this paper. The concept of
max-min charge and its condition is presented in this
section. Analytical analysis is also, discussed and next
section provide some comparison between max-min
fairness and max-min charge.
4.1 Principle of max-min charge
Max-min charge [17] is basically based in the allocation of
charges among all users. In other words, blocking
transmission is imposed in the flows in accordance to
specific conditions. By adopting such principle, scheduling
mechanisms are providing better fairness and higher
protection.
Before the conditions and the principle of max-min charge
are illustrated further, various definitions and lemmas
should be explained.
Consider a shared resource R and a set of users u that
contend R with demands D = { }. Assume that
there are two policies. is used to determine bandwidth
allocation and to determine the
charge (blockage) allocation .
Definition 4.1
The policy is considered true if it respect the following Definition 4.5
conditions for all possible demand D:
A specific flow considered as saturated once
1. for all its queue size reaches 95% and above.
This means that resource allocation for user should Definition 4.6
not be negative since the negative sign implies the
The policy considered active if it satisfied the following
feeding of the resource from user side.
constraints:
2.
1.
This highlights two points: This means that to activate such policy, the output
buffer B should reach or exceed 25% of its
a. The sum of resource allocation for all users
capacity.
should not exceed the total resource available
2.
for the link shared.
The number of backlogged flows should be equal
b. is limited and finite.
to 2 or more.
3.
Property 4.4
This condition implies that the assigned resource for
user should not exceed its demand.
Now we assume that has the following properties: This property identifies the greedy user from other users.
Property 4.1 Therefore, any flow has a reception rate double or more the
most second user is considered as a greedy user.
Non of the flows is assigned larger resource than others
with the same demand. Property 4.5

If considered as saturated flow packet should be dropped.

Property 4.2
Property 4.6
If the demand of the any two flows less than the allocated
bandwidth, the allocated bandwidth should be equal.
If there are more than flow considered as backlogged and
bottleneck, non of them considered as greedy.
Property 4.3 Property 4.7
Any flow cannot increase its allocated bandwidth by
simply increases its demand.
Definition 4.7
The policy considered max-min charge if and only if
Now to define we need to first define some basic combines both .
terminology:
Lemma 4.1
Definition 4.2
A specific queue marked as bottleneck queue
if and only if its packet reception rate exceeds double Proof 4.1
the reception rate of the second most. If the demand for session considered as greedy, it will be
For example if we have three flows allocated more charges means that it will be escaped in
next round and hence the allocation is less.
Lemma 4.2
And
Output buffer will not suffer from the congestion issue
= is packet reception rate for queue . since it will be dealt in each flow.
Definition 4.3 Proof 4.2
A specific queue considered as backlogged if There are to actions is been taken by max-min charge once
and only if its packet reception rate exceeded its packet the output buffer reaches or exceed 25%. Firstly, all greedy
transmission rate . users will be blocked in current round and packets will be
dropped from the greed y flow. Secondly, all saturated
Definition 4.4 flow will be also, experienced packet drop but not
A specific flow considered as congested flow blockage. Therefore, the congestion occurrence in the
once its queue size reaches at least 75% of the total buffer output buffer is rare.
size of that flow. Lemma 4.3
Max-min charge provides better protection. [11] J. C. R. Bennett, H. Zhang, and F. Syst, "WF 2 Q:
worst-case fair weighted fair queueing," in IEEE
Proof 4.3
INFOCOM, 1996.
All greedy users will be punished by two methods: round
[12] S. J. Golestani and M. Bellcore, "A self-clocked
escaped and packet dropped and this will deserve the right
fair queueing scheme for broadband applications,"
for other users.
in INFOCOM'94. Networking for Global
V. Conclusion Communications, 1994, pp. 636-646.
Max-min fairness principle allows a concurrent and small [13] Y. Miaji and S. Hassan, "A Survey on the
packet breaches. In small packet weakness exploitation, Chronological Evolution of Timestamp
greedy software transmits FTP packet, which has large size Schedulers in Packet Switching Networks," in
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packet size. Nevertheless, this software does not avoid the Conference on Broadband Network & Multimedia
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the rest and hence is bottleneck.
[14] Y. Miaji and S. Hassan, "A Comparative Survey
Max-min charge avoids both effect the concurrent and of Scheduling Mechanisms in the Internet," in
small packet breaches. Furthermore, it provides protection Proceedings of the IEEE TENCON 2009,
and better fairness for all users. Finally, max-min charge is Singapore, 2009.
executed in all cases including congestion situation.
[15] A. P. Markopoulou, F. A. Tobagi, and M. J.
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