Feedback-based adaptive packet marking for proportional bandwidth allocation

Differentiated service (DiffServ) networks have been proposed to assure the achievable minimum bandwidth to aggregate flows. However, analyses in the literature show that the current DiffServ networks are biased in favor of an aggregate flow that has a smaller committed information rate (CIR) when aggregate flows with different CIRs share a bottleneck link. In order to mitigate this unfairness problem, we propose an adaptive marking scheme which provides the relative bandwidth assurance in proportion to the CIRs of the aggregates. By introducing a virtual target rate (VTR) and adjusting it depending on the provision level of the network, each aggregate can obtain its fair share of the bandwidth, regardless of traffic load. This scheme is based on a feedback approach. It utilizes only two-bit feedback information conveyed in the packet header and can be implemented in a distributed manner. Furthermore, the proposed scheme does not require calculating fair shares of aggregates or any additional signaling protocol. Using steady state analysis and extensive simulations, we show that the scheme can provide aggregate flows with their fair shares of bandwidth, which is proportional to the CIRs, under various network conditions.