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In the above network, the allocation of all flows would grow until `A1-A2` and `B1-B2` reach 5 Mbps. At this point, link `R1-R2` becomes congested and these two flows have reached their maximum. The allocation for flow `C1-C2` can increase until reaching 15 Mbps. At this point, link `R2-R3` is congested. To increase the bandwidth allocated to `C1-C2`, one would need to reduce the allocation to flow `B1-B2`. Similarly, the only way to increase the allocation to flow `B1-B2` would require a decrease of the allocation to `A1-A2`.
Network congestion
Sharing bandwidth among the hosts directly attached to a link is not the only sharing problem that occurs in computer networks. To understand the general problem, let us consider a very simple network which contains only point-to-point links. This network contains three hosts and two routers. All the links inside the network have the same capacity. For example, let us assume that all links have a bandwidth of 1000 bits per second and that the hosts send packets containing exactly one thousand bits.
In the network above, consider the case where host `A` is transmitting packets to destination `C`. `A` can send one packet per second and its packets will be delivered to `C`. Now, let us explore what happens when host `B` also starts to transmit a packet. Node `R1` will receive two packets that must be forwarded to `R2`. Unfortunately, due to the limited bandwidth on the `R1-R2` link, only one of these two packets can be transmitted. The outcome of the second packet will depend on the available buffers on `R1`. If `R1` has one available buffer, it could store the packet that has not been transmitted on the `R1-R2` link until the link becomes available. If `R1` does not have available buffers, then the packet needs to be discarded.
Besides the link bandwidth, the buffers on the network nodes are the second type of resource that needs to be shared inside the network. The node buffers play an important role in the operation of the network because that can be used to absorb transient traffic peaks. Consider again the example above. Assume that on average host `A` and host `B` send a group of three packets every ten seconds. Their combined transmission rate (0.6 packets per second) is, on average, lower than the network capacity (1 packet per second). However, if they both start to transmit at the same time, node `R1` will have to absorb a burst of packets. This burst of packets is a small `network congestion`. We will say that a network is congested, when the sum of the traffic demand from the hosts is larger than the network capacity :math:`\sum{demand}>capacity`. This `network congestion` problem is one of the most difficult resource sharing problem in computer networks. `Congestion` occurs in almost all networks. Minimizing the amount of congestion is a key objective for many network operators. In most cases, they will have to accept transient congestion, i.e. congestion lasting a few seconds or perhaps minutes, but will want to prevent congestion that lasts days or months. For this, they can rely on a wide range of solutions. We briefly present some of these in the paragraphs below.
If `R1` has enough buffers, it will be able to absorb the load without having to discard packets. The packets sent by hosts `A` and `B` will reach their final destination `C`, but will experience a longer delay than when they are transmitting alone. The amount of buffering on the network node is the first parameter that a network operator can tune to control congestion inside his network. Given the decreasing cost of memory, one could be tempted to put as many buffers [#fbufferbloat]_ as possible on the network nodes. Let us consider this case in the network above and assume that `R1` has infinite buffers. Assume now that hosts `A` and `B` try to transmit a file that corresponds to one thousand packets each. Both are using a reliable protocol that relies on go-back-n to recover from transmission errors. The transmission starts and packets start to accumulate in `R1`'s buffers. The presence of these packets in the buffers increases the delay between the transmission of a packet by `A` and the return of the corresponding acknowledgment. Given the increasing delay, host `A` (and `B` as well) will consider that some of the packets that it sent have been lost. These packets will be retransmitted and will enter the buffers of `R1`. The occupancy of the buffers of `R1` will continue to increase and the delays as well. This will cause new retransmissions, ... In the end, only one file will be delivered (very slowly) to the destination, but the link `R1-R2` will transfer much more bytes than the size of the file due to the multiple copies of the same packets. This is known as the `congestion collapse` problem :rfc:`896`. Congestion collapse is the nightmare for network operators. When it happens, the network carries packets without delivering useful data to the end users.
Congestion collapse on the Internet
Congestion collapse is unfortunately not only an academic experience. Van Jacobson reports in [Jacobson1988]_ one of these events that affected him while he was working at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL). LBL was two network nodes away from the University of California in Berkeley. At that time, the link between the two sites had a bandwidth of 32 Kbps, but some hosts were already attached to 10 Mbps LANs. "In October 1986, the data throughput from LBL to UC Berkeley ... dropped from 32 Kbps to 40 bps. We were fascinated by this sudden factor-of-thousand drop in bandwidth and embarked on an investigation of why things had gotten so bad." This work lead to the development of various congestion control techniques that have allowed the Internet to continue to grow without experiencing widespread congestion collapse events.
Besides bandwidth and memory, a third resource that needs to be shared inside a network is the (packet) processing capacity. To forward a packet, a router needs bandwidth on the outgoing link, but it also needs to analyze the packet header to perform a lookup inside its forwarding table. Performing these lookup operations require resources such as CPU cycles or memory accesses. Routers are usually designed to be able to sustain a given packet processing rate, measured in packets per second [#fpps]_.
Packets per second versus bits per second
The performance of network nodes (either routers or switches) can be characterized by two key metrics :
the node's capacity measured in bits per second
the node's lookup performance measured in packets per second
The node's capacity in bits per second mainly depends on the physical interfaces that it uses and also on the capacity of the internal interconnection (bus, crossbar switch, ...) between the different interfaces inside the node. Many vendors, in particular for low-end devices will use the sum of the bandwidth of the nodes' interfaces as the node capacity in bits per second. Measurements do not always match this maximum theoretical capacity. A well designed network node will usually have a capacity in bits per second larger than the sum of its link capacities. Such nodes will usually reach this maximum capacity when forwarding large packets.
When a network node forwards small packets, its performance is usually limited by the number of lookup operations that it can perform every second. This lookup performance is measured in packets per second. The performance may depend on the length of the forwarded packets. The key performance factor is the number of minimal size packets that are forwarded by the node every second. This rate can lead to a capacity in bits per second which is much lower than the sum of the bandwidth of the node's links.
Let us now try to present a broad overview of the congestion problem in networks. We will assume that the network is composed of dedicated links having a fixed bandwidth [#fadjust]_. A network contains hosts that generate and receive packets and nodes (routers and switches) that forward packets. Assuming that each host is connected via a single link to the network, the largest demand is :math:`\sum{Access Links}`. In practice, this largest demand is never reached and the network will be engineered to sustain a much lower traffic demand. The difference between the worst-case traffic demand and the sustainable traffic demand can be large, up to several orders of magnitude. Fortunately, the hosts are not completely dumb and they can adapt their traffic demand to the current state of the network and the available bandwidth. For this, the hosts need to `sense` the current level of congestion and adjust their own traffic demand based on the estimated congestion. Network nodes can react in different ways to network congestion and hosts can sense the level of congestion in different ways.
Let us first explore which mechanisms can be used inside a network to control congestion and how these mechanisms can influence the behavior of the end hosts.
As explained earlier, one of the first manifestation of congestion on network nodes is the saturation of the network links that leads to a growth in the occupancy of the buffers of the node. This growth of the buffer occupancy implies that some packets will spend more time in the buffer and thus in the network. If hosts measure the network delays (e.g. by measuring the round-trip-time between the transmission of a packet and the return of the corresponding acknowledgment) they could start to sense congestion. On low bandwidth links, a growth in the buffer occupancy can lead to an increase of the delays which can be easily measured by the end hosts. On high bandwidth links, a few packets inside the buffer will cause a small variation in the delay which may not necessarily be larger that the natural fluctuations of the delay measurements.
If the buffer's occupancy continues to grow, it will overflow and packets will need to be discarded. Discarding packets during congestion is the second possible reaction of a network node to congestion. Before looking at how a node can discard packets, it is interesting to discuss qualitatively the impact of the buffer occupancy on the reliable delivery of data through a network. This is illustrated by the figure below, adapted from [Jain1990]_.
When the network load is low, buffer occupancy and link utilization are low. The buffers on the network nodes are mainly used to absorb very short bursts of packets, but on average the traffic demand is lower than the network capacity. If the demand increases, the average buffer occupancy will increase as well. Measurements have shown that the total throughput increases as well. If the buffer occupancy is zero or very low, transmission opportunities on network links can be missed. This is not the case when the buffer occupancy is small but non zero. However, if the buffer occupancy continues to increase, the buffer becomes overloaded and the throughput does not increase anymore. When the buffer occupancy is close to the maximum, the throughput may decrease. This drop in throughput can be caused by excessive retransmissions of reliable protocols that incorrectly assume that previously sent packets have been lost while they are still waiting in the buffer. The network delay on the other hand increases with the buffer occupancy. In practice, a good operating point for a network buffer is a low occupancy to achieve high link utilization and also low delay for interactive applications.
Discarding packets is one of the signals that the network nodes can use to inform the hosts of the current level of congestion. Buffers on network nodes are usually used as FIFO queues to preserve packet ordering. Several `packet discard mechanisms` have been proposed for network nodes. These techniques basically answer two different questions :
`What triggers a packet to be discarded ?` What are the conditions that lead a network node to decide to discard a packet? The simplest answer to this question is : `When the buffer is full`. Although this is a good congestion indication, it is probably not the best one from a performance viewpoint. An alternative is to discard packets when the buffer occupancy grows too much. In this case, it is likely that the buffer will become full shortly. Since packet discarding is an information that allows hosts to adapt their transmission rate, discarding packets early could allow hosts to react earlier and thus prevent congestion from happening.
`Which packet(s) should be discarded ?` Once the network node has decided to discard packets, it needs to actually discard real packets.
By combining different answers to these questions, network researchers have developed different packet discard mechanisms.
`Tail drop` is the simplest packet discard technique. When a buffer is full, the arriving packet is discarded. `Tail drop` can be easily implemented. This is, by far, the most widely used packet discard mechanism. However, it suffers from two important drawbacks. First, since `tail drop` discards packets only when the buffer is full, buffers tend to be congested and real-time applications may suffer from increased delays. Second, `tail drop` is blind when it discards a packet. It may discard a packet from a low bandwidth interactive flow while most of the buffer is used by large file transfers.
`Drop from front` is an alternative packet discard technique. Instead of removing the arriving packet, it removes the packet that was at the head of the queue. Discarding this packet instead of the arriving one can have two advantages. First, it already stayed a long time in the buffer. Second, hosts should be able to detect the loss (and thus the congestion) earlier.
`Probabilistic drop`. Various random drop techniques have been proposed. A frequently cited technique is `Random Early Discard` (RED) [FJ1993]_. RED measures the average buffer occupancy and discards packets with a given probability when this average occupancy is too high. Compared to `tail drop` and `drop from front`, an advantage of `RED` is that thanks to the probabilistic drops, packets should be discarded from different flows in proportion of their bandwidth.
Discarding packets is a frequent reaction to network congestion. Unfortunately, discarding packets is not optimal since a packet which is discarded on a network node has already consumed resources on the upstream nodes. There are other ways for the network to inform the end hosts of the current congestion level. A first solution is to mark the packets when a node is congested. Several networking technologies have relied on this kind of packet marking.
In datagram networks, `Forward Explicit Congestion Notification` (FECN) can be used. One field of the packet header, typically one bit, is used to indicate congestion. When a host sends a packet, the congestion bit is unset. If the packet passes through a congested node, the congestion bit is set. The destination can then determine the current congestion level by measuring the fraction of the packets that it received with the congestion bit set. It may then return this information to the sending host to allow it to adapt its retransmission rate. Compared to packet discarding, the main advantage of FECN is that hosts can detect congestion explicitly without having to rely on packet losses.
In virtual circuit networks, packet marking can be improved if the return packets follow the reverse path of the forward packets. It this case, a network node can detect congestion on the forward path (e.g. due to the size of its buffer), but mark the packets on the return path. Marking the return packets (e.g. the acknowledgments used by reliable protocols) provides a faster feedback to the sending hosts compared to FECN. This technique is usually called `Backward Explicit Congestion Notification (BECN)`.
If the packet header does not contain any bit in the header to represent the current congestion level, an alternative is to allow the network nodes to send a control packet to the source to indicate the current congestion level. Some networking technologies use such control packets to explicitly regulate the transmission rate of sources. However, their usage is mainly restricted to small networks. In large networks, network nodes usually avoid using such control packets. These control packets are even considered to be dangerous in some networks. First, using them increases the network load when the network is congested. Second, while network nodes are optimized to forward packets, they are usually pretty slow at creating new packets.

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cnp3-ebook / principles/sharing — English

Let us now try to present a broad overview of the congestion problem in networks. We will assume that the network is composed of dedicated links having a fixed bandwidth [#fadjust]_. A network contains hosts that generate and receive packets and nodes (routers and switches) that forward packets. Assuming that each host is connected via a single link to the network, the largest demand is :math:`\sum{Access Links}`. In practice, this largest demand is never reached and the network will be engineered to sustain a much lower traffic demand. The difference between the worst-case traffic demand and the sustainable traffic demand can be large, up to several orders of magnitude. Fortunately, the hosts are not completely dumb and they can adapt their traffic demand to the current state of the network and the available bandwidth. For this, the hosts need to `sense` the current level of congestion and adjust their own traffic demand based on the estimated congestion. Network nodes can react in different ways to network congestion and hosts can sense the level of congestion in different ways.
Let us now try to present a broad overview of the congestion problem in networks. We will assume that the network is composed of dedicated links having a fixed bandwidth [#fadjust]_. A network contains hosts that generate and receive packets and nodes (routers and switches) that forward packets. Assuming that each host is connected via a single link to the network, the largest demand is :math:`\sum{Access Links}`. In practice, this largest demand is never reached and the network will be engineered to sustain a much lower traffic demand. The difference between the worst-case traffic demand and the sustainable traffic demand can be large, up to several orders of magnitude. Fortunately, the hosts are not completely dumb and they can adapt their traffic demand to the current state of the network and the available bandwidth. For this, the hosts need to `sense` the current level of congestion and adjust their own traffic demand based on the estimated congestion. Network nodes can react in different ways to network congestion and hosts can sense the level of congestion in different ways.
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