Long-tail Traffic - Controlling Long-tail Traffic

Controlling Long-tail Traffic

Given the ubiquity of scale-invariant burstiness observed across diverse networking contexts, finding an effective traffic control algorithm capable of detecting and managing self-similar traffic has become an important problem. The problem of controlling self-similar network traffic is still in its infancy .

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 .

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 . Congestion control can be exercised concurrently at multiple time scales, and by cooperatively engaging information extracted at different time scales, achieve significant performance gains .

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 .

found that the simplest way to control packet traffic is to limit the length of queues. Long queues in the network invariably occur at hosts (entities that can transmit and receive packets). Congestion control can therefore be achieved by reducing the rate of packet production at hosts with long queues.

It should be noted that long-range dependence and its exploitation for traffic control is best suited for flows or connections whose lifetime or connection duration is long lasting .