Interaction of Congestion Control and Packet Marking Algorithms in ECN Networks

Vasilios A. Siris and Costas Courcoubetis
Institute of Computer Science (ICS), FORTH

Technical Report 296, ICS-FORTH, November 2001.
Preprint: [pdf, ps.gz]

Abstract

We investigate the interaction of weighted congestion control algorithms, running in end-systems, and packet market algorithms, running in routers, and the equilibrium operating point that results from this interaction. The marking probability as a function of average utilization affects the convergence and stability behavior of the system, and the performance of a marking algorithm for different loads and traffic burstiness. Based on this function, we investigate an approach for estimating the utilization at the equilibrium and, if each ECN mark is charged by a fixed price, what this price should be to achieve a target utilization, and to optimally share capacity when both elastic and inelastic traffic coexist. In packet-level simulation experiments we investigate how the marking probability is affected by parameters of the marking and congestion control algorithms; these experiments involve the MulTCP and WTP (Willingness-To-Pay) congestion control algorithms, and the RED, virtual queue, and load-based marking algorithms.

Keywords: active queue management, weighted window-based congestion control, service differentiation, pricing


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