A modified RIO queue management scheme that reduces the bandwidth skew problem in Assured Service

In offering a statistical end-to-end bandwidth guarantee service, typically called Assured Service, in Differentiated Serviced (Diff-Serv) framework, the biggest issue is its inconsistency. Larger profile TCP flows fail to achieve the guaranteed rate when competing with many smaller profile flows. This phenomenon, which we call "bandwidth skew", stems from the fact that larger profile flows take longer time to recover from the congestion window size backoff after a packet drop. Proposed solutions to this problem, therefore, are focused on modifying the TCP behavior. However, TCP modification is not practicable, mainly due to its large installation base. We look to other mechanisms in the Diff-Serv framework to find more realistic solutions. In particular, we demonstrate that RIO, the de facto standard packet differentiation mechanism used for Assured Service, also contributes to the bandwidth skew. Based on this new finding, we design a modified RIO mechanism called RI+O. RI+O uses OUT queue length in addition to IN and IN+OUT queue length to calculate OUT packet drop probability. We show through extensive simulation that RI+O significantly alleviates the bandwidth skew, expanding the operating regime for Assured Service.d Service.