Congestion Control Algorithms

Congestion is a state of excessive accumulation or overfilling or overcrowding.

Maximum carrying capacity of subnet Perfect

Packets Delivered
Desirable

Congested

Packets Sent
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Factors responsible for congestion

Packet arrival rate exceeds the outgoing link capacity. Insufficient memory to store arriving packets Bursty traffic Slow processor

Congestion tends to feed upon itself & become worse.

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Difference between Congestion Control & Flow Control

Congestion control has to make sure that subnet is able to carry the offered load. Flow control relates to point-to-point traffic between a given sender & a receiver.

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Principles Of Congestion Control

Control Theory

Open Loop Control

Closed Loop Control

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Open Loop Control

Open loop control attempts to solve the problem by making sure it doesnt occur in the first place. Tools: When to accept a new packet. Deciding when to discard packets & which ones. Making scheduling decisions at various points in the network.
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Closed Loop Control

Its based on the concept of feedback loop. When applied to congestion control: 1. Monitors the system to detect when & where congestion occurs. 2. Pass this information to the places where action can be taken. 3. Adjust system operation to correct the problem.
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Techniques
Several techniques can be employed. These include: Choke packets Load shedding Traffic shaping The first 2 deal with congestion detection and recovery. The last one deals with congestion avoidance.
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Traffic Shaping
Forcing the packets to be transmitted in a more predictable rate. Traffic policing: Monitoring the traffic flow.

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The Leaky Bucket Algorithm

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The Token Bucket Algorithm

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Leaky Bucket vs Token Bucket

LB discards packets; TB does not. TB discards tokens. With TB, a packet can only be transmitted if there are enough tokens to cover its length in bytes. LB sends packets at an average rate. TB allows for large bursts to be sent faster by speeding up the output. TB allows saving up tokens (permissions) to send large bursts. LB does not allow saving.

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Choke Packets
A more direct way of telling the source to slow down. A choke packet is a control packet generated at a congested node and transmitted to restrict traffic flow. The source, on receiving the choke packet must reduce its transmission rate by a certain percentage.
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unew = auold

( 1-a ) f

U Utilization of its output lines. A a constant, how fast the router forgets the recent history. F instantaneous line utilization

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Weighted Fair Queuing

Packet Finishing time

A B C D

11

15

19

20
C 8

12

16
B 16

O
13 17

17

18

10

14

18

20

A router with 5 packets queued for line O

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Finishing times for 5 packets

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Choke Packets that affects only the source

B
A E B A E B A
Choke

C D F C A

C D A

C D

Choke
E B F C

Flow is still at maximum rate

B
Choke

C
D Flow is reduced

A Reduced Flow E F

D A

F C D

E
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F
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Hop-by-hop Choke Packet

B B C D E a) B A C D F b)
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C D

A
F

A Heavy Flow Choke E F

Reduced Flow B C D E F

c)

B
A

C D F d)

Choke E

Choke E

e)

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Load Shedding
Load Shedding is a way in which the routers when flooded with packets that it cannot handle, just throws them away.

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Jitter Control
In this technique, the packets which are ahead of schedule get slowed down & packets that are behind schedule get speeded up.

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Congestion Control For Multicasting

RSVP--- Resource reSerVation Protocol
1 Sender s 2

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