CONGESTION CONTROL ALGORITHMS

1) What is congestion? ( it is a situation where Too many packets present in a

network causes
1)packet loss 2) packet delay 3) performance
degradation

2) Which layer responsibility to handle congestion?( both network and

transport layers)
1.since the congestion occurs within the
network
2.it is the network layer that directly
experiences it
3.so the network layer ultimately determine
what to do with the excess packets

3) effective way to control congestion(by reducing the load)

that transport layer is placing on the network
This requires the network and transport layers
to work together

4) Diagram

5) What the above diagram predicts? (onset of congestion)

6) Carrying capacity? (1.every network will be having some carrying capacity

2.for example if the carrying capacity of a network is 100
packets then a host can send at most <100
packets

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 3. when the no of packets sent by a host falls within the
carrying capacity then the no of packets sent = no
of packets received
4. if twice as many are sent , twice as many are delivered

7) What happens when offered load approaches carrying capacity?

1. buffers of the routers may fill up
2. some packets may be lost
3.the no of delivered packets falls below the
ideal curve
8) what the x and y axis represents?( 1. X axis represents offered load
2.Y axis represents goodput or the rate at
which useful packets are delivered
by the network

5.3.1 Approaches to Congestion Control

1) Indication of presence of congestion ( load > no of resources )

2) Solution to the above problem? (2 solutions )
1. Increase the no of resources
2. Decrease the load
3) Diagram(NP,TAR,AC,TT,LS)

4) What is the best way to avoid congestion? (by building a network )

that is well matched to the traffic that it
carries)

5) Low bandwidth link – congestion?( when there is a low bandwidth link

on the path along most traffic is
directed congestion is likely to occur)

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6) What can be done in handling serious congestion?(
1.adding (resources)
2.turning (spare routers)
3.enabling(backup lines)
4.purchasing( bandwidth)
1. By adding the resources dynamically
2. by turning on the spare routers
3.by enabling the backup lines
4.purchasing the bandwidth

7) What is network provisioning? ( upgrading the heavily utilized

resources such as links, routers at
the earliest opportunity and it
happens on a time scale of months,
driven bylong-term traffic trends.)

8) What is traffic aware routing?(1.routers can be tailored to traffic

patterns)
2. traffic patterns change during the day
as the network users wake and sleep
in different time zones)

9) Examples for traffic aware routing?

1. changing the routes to shift traffic away
from heavily used paths
2.Some local radio stations have helicopters
flying around their cities to report on road
congestion to make it possible for their
mobile listeners to route their packets
(cars) around Hot spots.
3.Splitting traffic across multiple paths is also
helpful.

10)What is admission control (

1. refusing the new connections if they cause
congestion in the network
2. sometimes it is not possible to increase
capacity. The only way then to beat back
the congestion is to decrease the load. This is
called admission control.)
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11) What is traffic throttling? (1.by giving feed back to the sources
2.by requesting these sources to throttle
their traffic( to hold somebody
tightly by the throat)
3.network itself can slow down the traffic

1)what we can do in case when congestion becomes imminent

( 1.by delivering feed back to the sources whose
traffic flows are responsible for the congestion
2.The network can request these sources to
throttle their traffic, or it can slow down the traffic
itself.

2) what are the two difficulties with this approach(

1.identifying the source or onset of congestion
2.how to inform the source that needs to slow
down

Two difficulties with this approach are how to identify the onset of congestion,
and how to inform the source that needs to slow down.

3)how onset congestion can be identified?(

1.by monitoring average load
2.by monitoring queuing delay
3.by monitoring packet loss
4.in all cases rising numbers
indicate growing congestion

4)how sources can be informed?(

1.routers must participate in a feedback loop with sources
2.by adjusting time scale carefully
3.if every time two packets arrive in a row , a router yells stop
4.every time a router is idle for 20sec it yells go
5.the system will oscillate wildly and never converge.
6. Delivering timely feedback is a nontrivial matter.

What is load shedding?( discarding the packets that we can’t deliver)

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Finally, when all else fails, the network is forced to discard packets that it cannot
deliver. The general name for this is load shedding.

A good policy for choosing which packets to discard can help to prevent
congestion collapse.