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4 Internet QoS Management

Rolf Stadler
School of Electrical Engineering
KTH Royal Institute of Technology
stadler@ee.kth.se
April 2006
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Outline
4.1 Communication resources on the Internet
Quality of Service (QoS) of network services
4.2 The critical resources on a router
4.3 Internet flows with QoS
4.4 Multiclass networks
Providing QoS in multiclass networks
4.5 Performance management in a multiclass network
A DiffServ management architecture
Elements of a generic architecture
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QoS Management
QoS management deals with allocating network resources
to services in order to meet service-level objectives in an
efficient way.
In this course, we focus on QoS on the IP network layer.
QoS management is part of performance management.
Performance management, specifically network planning
and provisioning involve other layers than the network
layer: E.g., optical networks for physical layer service, or
access networks for link layer service.
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The traditional Internet Service
The network performs best-effort packet delivery.
No guarantee that a packet is delivered within a certain
time, or delivered at all.
However, there is a fairness principle: All packets are
treated the same way.
Performance management primarily consists of
monitoring the network links for high/low utilization;
(re-) configuring the routing mechanism;
adding and upgrading links if needed.
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Quality of Service (QoS) on the Internet
Many applications have specific performance requirements vis--vis
the network service, such as min. bandwidth and bounds on end-to-end
delay and packet loss.
These requirements are called QoS requirements.
QoS mechanisms are control mechanisms that allow to
differentiate the traffic, i.e., give certain traffic (packets) better
service than other traffic.
provide performance guarantees to certain traffic, generally in a
statistical sense.
Giving performance guarantees to traffic implies
allocating network resources to that traffic.
Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) do not apply explicit QoS
control. They attempt achieving QoS through over-provisioning.
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(Simplified) Functional Model of a Router (1)
Routing Table
Process S
Serves input buffers.
Examines packet headers.
Performs route lookup
Switches packets
to output port.
Input Port
Output Port/Multiplexer
Output Buffer Output Link Input Link Input Buffer
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Functional Model of a Router (2)
A router can be seen as a packet processor,
operating on serveral streams of IP packets at the same time.
The previous slide gives a simplified model, allowing for many
hardware and software realizations.
The resources related to router are
link capacity (bits/sec),
buffer capacity (bytes),
switching capacity (packets/sec).
The critical resources, i.e., potential performance bottlenecks, are
located at the output ports; specifically, link capacity and buffer space
on the outgoing links.
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Output Port of a Router (1)
Process S
Buffer
Manager
Link
Scheduler
Output Buffer
Output Link
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Output Port of a Router (2)
Output port (multiplexer) is location of critical resources regarding
packet-level QoS. It contains two control mechanisms: Buffer manager
and link scheduler.
Buffer manager manages buffer space.
Inserts packets into output buffer.
Drops packets in case of buffer overflow.
Simplest policy is FIFO; more complex policies to support specific
QoS requirements.
Link scheduler manages transmission time on ouput link.
Selects the packet in buffer that is transmitted next.
Simplest policy is FCFS; more complex policies to to support
specific QoS requirements.
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Flows with QoS (Quality of Service)
Many applications, such as video and audio, are based on flows rather
than single packets.
Concept of a flow in a packet-switched network
Is similar to a call in traditional telephone networks.
A flow consists of a sequence of packets with same flowId in IP
header and with max interarrival time.
The 4-tuple (sourceIP, sourcePort, destIP, destPort) can be used as
flowId.
Flows have performance characteristics, e.g., peak rate, average
rate.
Flows have QoS requirements, e.g., bounds on end-to-end delay,
loss, and mimimal throughput for packets.
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How to Support QoS for Flows
Isolate flows Resource allocation per flow
Buffer allocation, configuring scheduling on routers
per flow during flow setup phase
Admission control per flow and (often) per output port
Aggregate flows into classesResource allocation per class
Flows with identical (or similar) performance characteristics and QoS
requirements are assigned to the same class.
Buffer allocation, scheduling on routers per class
during provisioning phase
Admission control per flow at network ingress point
For per-flow resource allocation, resources are reserved at run-time, every
time a flow is established. Example of a protocol for this purpose: RSVP.
Per-class resource allocation is configured in the provisioning phase and
adjusted at run-time through management protocols, such as SNMP.
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Multiclass Networks
The reason for having multiclass networks: Guaranteeing QoS for
aggregate flows requires less complex control mechanisms than for
single flows. All packets within an aggregated flow are treated the
same way.
Multiclass networks can support several best-effort and guaranteed
services at the same time.
To provide QoS guarantees to flows, admission control is performed at
the edge of the network.
Differentiated Services (DiffServ) is an Internet standard for a
multiclass network.
An complement/alternative to DiffServ is MPLS (multiprotocol label
switching). While DiffServ differentiates through buffer management
and scheduling, MPLS does so through routing.
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DiffServ as a Multiclass Internet Service
Each service class is identified by a 6-bit DSCP
(DiffServ Code Point) in the IP header.
Upon entering a DiffServ domain, each packet is marked
with a DSCP.
Buffer management and scheduling policies for each class
determined by PHBs (per-hop behaviors).
Two types of routers in a DiffServ domain:
(1) edge routers, which mark and police entering packets;
(2) core routers, which enforce the PHBs.
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DiffServ Service Classes
and QoS Control Mechanism
Mapping DSCP to Per Hop Behavior (PHB).
Traffic Control Blocks (TCBs) used to implement
packet classification and PHB.
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Functional Model of a DiffServ Router
TCBs are attached to input ports and/or output ports of routers.
(The Routing module corresponds to the process S in previous slide.)
Ingress routers have Ingress TCBs to mark packets.
Core routers have Egress TCBs to implement per-hop-behavior.
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DiffServ Service Classes
Service classes
Expedited Forwarding (EF):
hard quantitative guarantees,
suitable for real-time, inelastic traffic
Assured Forwarding (AF1-4):
relative qualitative guarantees
Best Effort
Suggested scheduling policies
Priority queuing among EF, AF, and Best Effort queues
Weighted fair queuing within AF among AFx queues
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Monitoring End-to-end Aggregated Flows
in a DiffServ Network
A (sourceIP, destIP) and DSCP define an aggregated flow with ingress and egress
points.
The router MIB II allow to determine the flow paths. The router DiffServ MIBs
provide the local performance metrics for each aggregated flow, from which the end-
to-end performance metrics are computed . See [Kim 00] for details .
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A DiffServ Management System
TCBs provide metering information (monitoring) and enforce PHB.
They are monitored and controlled via managed objects in the DiffServ MIB.
For a detailed discussion of the system see [Kim 00] .
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QoS Management of Multiclass Networks
Goal of QoS Management
Achieve QoS objectives of user traffic.
Use networking resources efficiently.
Provisioning phase
Predict traffic matrix and estimate network resources needed.
Configure the mapping of user traffic to service classes.
Configure, for each class, buffers, schedulers, etc.
(i.e., assign resources to classes)
Configure flow admission control.
Configure network routes.
Operational phase
Monitor traffic matrix.
Monitor QoS for each class.
Adjust allocation of network resources to classes according to
changes in traffic matrix and management objectives.
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Elements of a QoS Management Architecture
for a Multiclass Network
A QoS architecture can be built as a feedback control system with the
resource controllers as the managed system.
Functionality of the architecture
Change QoS objectives of service classes
Change communication resources allocated to service classes
In this example
We focus on managing flow admission controllers.
There is one flow admission controller per output port (link).
The system achieves local QoS objectives per service class,
on the packet and flow levels.
The discussion is qualitative. For more details and a quantitative
discussion see, see [Chan 97] and [Hyman 93].
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A Management Architecture with
Monitor-Control Loop
Management Application
Management Parameters
Control Monitoring
Map Management
to Control Parameters
Control Parameters
Global State
Create Abstractions
Management
System
Service Delivery
System
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Example: Changing the Allocation of
Network Resources to service Classes
Continuous monitoring
States of link admission controllers
(dots in window on left side)
Control operation
Changing the max allowable blocking rate for flows
changes the allocation of network resources.
This change is realized in the prototype network by
modifying the control parameters of the link admission
controllers.
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Scenario Description
The network supports three service classes,
with flows for video, audio and data communication.
A window shows the states of all link admission controllers as 3-dim vectors.
Each dimension indicates the number of active flows of a particular class on a
link.
The panel shows the max. allowable blocking rates for all classes.
Initial state
The system is highly loaded. The load is steady.
Management action
The blocking rate for video flows is increased.
Result
The operating point of the network changes.
As audio flows leave the network, they are (likely) replaced
by video or data flows.
The QoS objectives of the audio class is decreased.
Network resources are transferred from audio to other classes.
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Schedulable Region: An Abstraction
for the Capacity of an Output Port
number of class I flows
number of class II flows
Boundary of Schedulable Region
(local QoS requirements guaranteed)
system state
Boundary fixed rate allocation
Example:
Class I: Characteristics: max 64 kb/s, QoS: < 1ms, < 10e-2
Class II: Characteristics: max 1 Mb/s, QoS: < 2ms, < 10e-6
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The Schedulable Region (2)
The schedulable region abstracts the
capacity of an output port in a multiclass network.
It defines all system states for which the local QoS
requirements for all flows can be met.
The previous slide shows the case of two classes of flows.
An extension to n>2 classes is straightforward [Chan 97] .
The boundary of the schedulable regions can be computed
via simulation or can be estimated in real-time.
The schedulable region can be used to characterize
the link capacity for an admission controller.
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Generic Model of a Resource Controller
The L-E Model
Request Intensities Resource Capacity
Legislator
Control Parameters State Abstractions
Control Policy
Capacity
Estimator
Executor
Resource State
Intensity
Estimator
Request
Request
Response
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The L-E Model
Is a design of a manageable resource control system.
Legislator optimizes an objective function, produces a local control
policy, according to which resources are allocated by the Executor.
Operates on two time scales
Legislator on a slow time scale,
Executor on a fast time scale, is triggered by requests.
Management Interface
Control parameters for sub components and state abstractions
Can be implemented on a single machine or in a distributed way with
legislator and executor running on different machines.
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Application of L-E Model
to a Link Admission Controller
Control parameters (set by management system): Blocking
constraintsh per class, costs generated by call, time scale of executing
legislator, etc.
Resource capacity: schedulable region.
Resource state: number of flows of each class currently on the link.
Control policy: set of allowable (resource states) and allowable
transitions between those states.
Request intensities: rate of accepted and rejected flow requests.
Legislator: objective functions that maximizes an expected system
utility while observing QoS requirements on the packet level and the
flow level.
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Managing the communication resources of a multimedia network [Chan97].
(a) operator interface; (b) management parameters; (c) performance management
subsystem; (d) control parameters; (e) resource control subsystem.
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For Further Study
DiffServ management:
[Kim 00] Jae-Young Kim, Won-Ki Hong, Sook-Hyun Ryu and Tae-Sang
Choi, "Constructing End-to-End Traffic Flows for Managing Differentiated
Services Networks", Proc. of the 11th IFIP/IEEE International Workshop on
Distributed Systems: Operations and Management (DSOM 2000), Austin, TX,
USA, December 2000, pp. 83-94.
Schedulable region and L-E model:
[Chan 97] M.C. Chan, G. Pacifici and R. Stadler, "Managing multimedia
network services," Journal of Network and Systems Management (JNSM),
Vol. 5, No. 3, 1997.
In-depth treatment of schedulable region concept:
[Hyman 93] Hyman, J.M.; Lazar, A.A.; Pacifici, G.:A separation principle
between scheduling and admission control for broadband switching, Selected
Areas in Communications, IEEE Journal on , Volume: 11 Issue: 4 , May 1993,
pp. 605 616.