Advanced Computer

Networking
Active Queue Management
TCP & AQM
xi(t)
pl(t)
TCP:

Reno

Vegas
AQM:

DropTail

RED

REM,PI,AVQ
Example congestion measure p
l
(t)
Loss (Reno)
Queuing delay (Vegas)
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Active queue management
Main idea :: provide congestion
information by some indications.
Issues
How to measure congestion?
How to feed back congestion info?
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Active Queue Management
Goals:
The primary goal is to provide congestion
avoidance by controlling the average queue
size such that the router stays in a region of
low delay and high throughput.
To avoid global synchronization (e.g., in Tahoe
TCP).
To control misbehaving users (this is from a
fairness context).
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Algorithm 1: Drop Tail
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FIFO queuing mechanism that drops
packets from the tail when the queue
overflows.
Introduces global synchronization when
packets are dropped from several
connections.
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Early Random Drop Router
If the queue length exceeds a drop level, then
the router drops each arriving packet with a
fixed drop probability p.
Reduces global synchronization
Does not control misbehaving users (UDP)
p
Drop level
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RED/ECN Router Mechanism


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1
0
Average Queue Length
min
th
max
th

Dropping/Marking
Probability
Queue Size
max
p

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RED Algorithm
for each packet arrival
calculate the average queue size avg
if min
th
avg < max
th
calculate the probability p
a
with probability p
a
:

mark the arriving packet
else if max
th
avg
mark all the arriving packet.
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avg - average queue length
avg=(1w
q
)xavg+w
q
xq
where q is the newly measured queue length.

This exponential weighted moving average is
designed such that short-term increases in
queue size from bursty traffic or transient
congestion do not significantly increase
average queue size.
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RED drop probability ( p
a
)
p
b
= max
p
x (avg - min
th
)/(max
th
min
th
)
then
p
a
= p
b
/ (1 - count x p
b
)

Where, count is number of consecutive
packets queued since last discard while
in the critical region.

RED parameter settings
w
q
suggest 0.001 <= w
q
<= 0.0042
authors use w
q
= 0.002 for simulations
min
th
, max
th
depend on desired average queue size
bursty traffic increase min
th
to maintain link
utilization.
max
th
depends on the maximum average delay
allowed.
RED is most effective when max
th
- min
th
is
larger than typical increase in calculated
average queue size in one round-trip time.
parameter setting rule: max
th
at least twice
min
th
. However, max
th
= 3 times min
th
is used in
some of the experiments shown.
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Packet-marking probability
The goal is to uniformly spread out the marked
packets. This reduces global synchronization.
Method 1: geometric random variable
When each packet is marked with probability
p
b,
, the packet inter-marking time, X, is a
geometric random variable with E[X] = 1/p
b.
This distribution will both cluster packet
drops and have some long intervals between
drops!!
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packet-marking probability
Method 2: uniform random variable
Mark packet with probability
p
b
/ (1 - count x p
b
)
where count is the number of unmarked
packets that have arrived since last
marked packet.

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Method 1: geometric p = 0.02
Method 2: uniform p = 0.01
Result :: marked packets more clustered for
method 1 Uniform is better at eliminating
bursty drops
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Setting max
p
RED performs best when packet-marking
probability changes fairly slowly as the
average queue size changes.
This is a stability argument in that the claim is
that RED with small max
p
will reduce oscillations
in avg and actual marking probability.
They recommend that max
p
never be greater
than 0.1
{This is not a robust recommendation.}
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Variant: ARED (Feng, Kandlur, Saha, Shin 1999)
Motivation: RED extremely sensitive
to #sources
Idea: adapt max
p
to load
If avg. queue < min
th
, decrease max
p
If avg. queue > max
th
, increase max
p

No per-flow information needed
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Variant: FRED (Ling & Morris 1997)
Motivation: marking packets in proportion to flow rate is
unfair (e.g., adaptive vs unadaptive flows)
Idea:
A flow can buffer up to min
q
packets without being
marked
A flow that frequently buffers more than max
q

packets gets penalized
All flows with backlogs in between are marked
according to RED
No flow can buffer more than avgcq packets
persistently
Need per-active-flow accounting
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Variant: SRED (Ott, Lakshman & Wong 1999)
Motivation: wild oscillation of queue in
RED when load changes
Idea:
Estimate number N of active flows
An arrival packet is compared with a randomly
chosen active flows
N ~ prob(Hit)
-1
cwnd~p
-1/2
and Np
-1/2
= Q
0
implies p = (N/Q
0
)
2
No per-flow information needed
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Variant: BLUE (Feng, Kandlur, Saha, Shin 1999)
Idea: perform queue management based
directly on packet loss and link utilization
rather than on the instantaneous or
average queue lengths.

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REM (Athuraliya & Low 2000)
Congestion measure: price
p
l
(t+1) = [p
l
(t) + g(a
l
b
l
(t)+ x
l

(t) - c
l
)]
+


Embedding: exponential probability function





Feedback: dropping or ECN marking
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
Link congestion measure
L
i
n
k

m
a
r
k
i
n
g

p
r
o
b
a
b
i
l
i
t
y
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Match rate
Key features
Clear buffer and match rate

Clear buffer
+
+ + = + )] ) ( ) ( ( ) ( [ ) 1 (
l
l
l l l l
c t x t b t p t p o
) ( ) (
1 1
t p t p
s
l

| |

Sum prices
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TCP/AQM Models
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TCP & AQM
xi(t)
pl(t)
Example congestion measure p
l
(t)
Loss (Reno)
Queueing delay (Vegas)
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Macroscopic View of TCP
Control
TCP/AQM: A feedback control system
TCP Sender 1
C
xi(t)
TCP:

Reno

Vegas

FAST
AQM:

DropTail / RED

Delay

ECN
TCP Sender 2
q(t)
TCP Receiver 1
TCP Receiver 2
B i
i
t q , t x F t x t =
-
( ) ( ) ( ) |
.
|

\
|
=

-
c t x t q G t q
F
i
i
t ,
F
B
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Fluid Models
Assumptions:
TCP algorithms directly control the transmission
rates;
The transmission rates are differentiable (smooth);
Each TCP packet observes the same congestion price
(loss, delay or ECN)
( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
B i
i
t q , t x F t x t =
-
( ) ( ) ( ) |
.
|

\
|
=
-
c t x , t q G t q
F
i
i
t
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Outline
Protocol
(Reno, Vegas, RED, REM/PI)

Equilibrium

Performance

Throughput, loss, delay

Fairness

Utility
Dynamics

Local stability

Cost of stabilization
)) ( ), ( ( ) 1 (
)) ( ), ( ( ) 1 (
t x t p G t p
t x t p F t x
= +
= +
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