How can Long-Tail traffic be controlled?
Traffic control for self-similar traffic has been explored on two fronts; firstly, as an extension of performance analysis in the resource provisioning context, and secondly, from the multiple time scale traffic control perspective where the correlation structure at large time scales is actively exploited to improve network performance (Wikipedia).
The resource provisioning approach seeks to identify the relative utility of the two principal network resource types - bandwidth and buffer capacity - with respect to their curtailing effects on self-similarity, and advocates a small buffer/ large bandwidth resource dimensioning policy. Whereas resource provisioning is open-loop in nature, multiple time scale traffic control exploits the long-range correlation structure present in self-similar traffic (Wikipedia).
Congestion control can be exercised concurrently at multiple time scales, and by cooperatively engaging information extracted at different time scales, achieve significant performance gains (Wikipedia).
Another approach adopted in controlling long-tail traffic makes traffic controls cognizant of workload properties. For example, when TCP is invoked in HTTP in the context of web client/ server interactions, the size of the file being transported (which is known at the server) is conveyed or made accessible to protocols in the transport layer, including the selection of alternative protocols, for more effective data transport. For short files, which constitute the bulk of connection requests in heavy-tailed file size distributions of web servers, elaborate feedback control may be bypassed in favour of lightweight mechanisms in the spirit of optimistic control, which can result in improved bandwidth utilisation (Wikipedia).
Example:
It was found that the simplest way to control packet traffic is to limit the length of queues. Congestion control can therefore be achieved by reducing the rate of packet production at hosts with long queues (Wikipedia).
Exercise:
Under what conditions can long range dependence be exploited for traffic control. Answer
References:
Wikipedia. "Long-tail traffic", Wikimedia Foundation Inc, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-tail_traffic, Last accessed 13th February 2006.
Arnold Mwesigye
Comments, questions, feedback, criticisms?
Send feedback
- E-mail the author of the module, How can Long-Tail traffic be controlled?
Footer
More about this content: Metadata | Version History
This work is licensed by Arnold Mwesigye under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 2.0).
Last edited by Arnold Mwesigye on Feb 15, 2006 11:03 am US/Central.