Max-min Fair Link Capacity Pre-allocation
Max-min fairness in communication networks assumes that resources (capacities of communication links) are allocated to flows in advance, as opposed to best-effort networks.
Consider i data flows, sometimes called users or sources. Each data flow has a defined initial node, a destination node, and a desired data rate. A flow on its path through the network may be divided between "parallel" links, in a load balancing scheme.
An allocation vector x whose i-th coordinate is the allocation for flow i, i.e. the rate at which the user i is allowed to emit data.
An allocation of rates x is “max-min fair” if and only if an increase of any rate within the domain of feasible allocations must be at the cost of a decrease of some already smaller rate. Depending on the problem, a max-min fair allocation may or may not exist. However, if it exists, it is unique.
The name “max-min” comes from the idea that it is the rate of the smaller (or minimum) flows that is made as large as possible (maximized) by the algorithm. Hence we give higher relative priority to small flows. Only when a flow asks to consume more than C/N (link capacity/number of flows) is it at any risk of having its bandwidth throttled by the algorithm.
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