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Traditional Elements of Traffic Control Shaping

Shaping Shapers delay packets to meet a desired rate.

Shaping is the mechanism by which packets are delayed before
Scheduling transmission in an output queue to meet a desired output rate.
Classifying This is one of the most common desires of users seeking
bandwidth control solutions.
Policing
The act of delaying a packet as part of a traffic control solution
Dropping makes every shaping mechanism into a non-work-conserving
mechanism, meaning roughly: "Work is required in order to delay
Marking packets."
Shapers attempt to limit or ration traffic to meet but not exceed a
configured rate (frequently measured in packets per second or
bits/bytes per second).
As a side effect, shapers can smooth out bursty traffic.
One of the advantages of shaping bandwidth is the ability to
control latency of packets.
Two of approaches to shaping mechanisms are the interrelated
concepts of tokens and buckets.
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Traffic Shaping The Leaky Bucket Algorithm

Traffic shaping controls the rate at which packets

are sent (not just how many).
The Leaky Bucket Algorithm used to control rate in a
At connection set-up time, the sender and carrier
network. It is implemented as a single-server queue with
negotiate a traffic pattern (shape).
constant service time. If the bucket (buffer) overflows then
Two traffic shaping algorithms are:
packets are discarded.
Leaky Bucket
Token Bucket

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The Leaky Bucket Algorithm

(a) A leaky bucket with water. (b) a leaky bucket with packets.

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Leaky Bucket Algorithm- contd…

The leaky bucket enforces a constant output rate

(average rate) regardless of the burstiness of the input.
Does nothing when input is idle.
The host injects one packet per clock tick onto the (a)
network. This results in a uniform flow of packets,
smoothing out bursts and reducing congestion.
When packets are the same size, the one packet per
tick is okay. For variable length packets though, it is (b)
better to allow a fixed number of bytes per tick. E.g.
1024 bytes per tick will allow one 1024-byte packet or
two 512-byte packets or four 256-byte packets on 1
tick. (a) Input to a leaky bucket from host
(b) Output from a leaky bucket.

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Token Bucket Algorithm
In contrast to the LB, the Token Bucket Algorithm,
allows the output rate to vary, depending on the size
of the burst.
In the TB algorithm, the bucket holds tokens. To
transmit a packet, the host must capture and destroy
one token.
Tokens are generated by a clock at the rate of one
token every t sec.
Idle hosts can capture and save up tokens (up to the
max. size of the bucket) in order to send larger bursts
later.
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Token Bucket Algorithm …contd
The algorithm can be conceptually understood as follows:
A token is added to the bucket every 1 / r seconds.
The bucket can hold at the most b tokens. If a token
arrives when the bucket is full, it is discarded.
When a packet (network layer PDU) of n bytes arrives, n
tokens are removed from the bucket, and the packet is
sent to the network.
If fewer than n tokens are available, no tokens are
removed from the bucket, and the packet is considered
to be non-conformant.
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Token Bucket Algorithm …contd
The token bucket is a control mechanism that
dictates when traffic can be transmitted, based on
the presence of tokens in the bucket.
The token bucket contains tokens, each of which
can represent a unit of bytes. The network
administrator specifies how many tokens are
needed to transmit
When tokens are present, a flow is allowed to
transmit. If there are no tokens in the bucket, a flow
cannot transmit its packets. Therefore, a flow can
transmit traffic up to its peak burst rate if there are
adequate tokens in the bucket and if the burst
threshold is configured appropriately.
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Token Bucket Algorithm …contd
The algorithm allows bursts of up to b bytes, but over
the long run the output of conformant packets is limited
to the constant rate, r. Non-conformant packets can be
treated in various ways:
They may be dropped.
They may be enqueued for subsequent transmission
when sufficient tokens have accumulated in the
bucket.
They may be transmitted, but marked as being non-
conformant, possibly to be dropped subsequently if
the network is overloaded.
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The Token Bucket Algorithm The Token Bucket Algorithm

5-34

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(a) Before. (b) After. 39

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Leaky Bucket vs Token Bucket

Leaky and Token bucket Algorithm Animation
LB discards packets; TB does not. TB discards
tokens.
With TB, a packet can only be transmitted if there are
enough tokens to cover its length in bytes.
LB sends packets at an average rate. TB allows for
large bursts to be sent faster by speeding up the
output.
TB allows saving up tokens (permissions) to send
large bursts. LB does not allow saving.

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Scheduling Classifying

Schedulers arrange and/or rearrange packets for
output.
Scheduling is the mechanism by which packets are
arranged (or rearranged) between input and output
of a particular queue.
The overwhelmingly most common scheduler is the
FIFO (first-in first-out) scheduler.
From a larger perspective, any set of traffic control
mechanisms on an output queue can be regarded
as a scheduler, because packets are arranged for
output.
Classifiers sort or separate traffic into queues.
Classifying is the mechanism by which packets are
separated for different treatment, possibly different
output queues.
During the process of accepting, routing and
transmitting a packet, a networking device can
classify the packet a number of different ways.
Classification can include marking the packet,
which usually happens on the boundary of a network
under a single administrative control or classification
can occur on each hop individually.

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Policing Policing

Policers measure and limit traffic in a particular queue.
Policing is simply a mechanism by which traffic can be
limited.
Policing is most frequently used on the network border to
ensure that a peer is not consuming more than its
allocated bandwidth.
A policer will accept traffic to a certain rate, and then
perform an action on traffic exceeding this rate. A rather
harsh solution is to drop the traffic, although the traffic
could be reclassified instead of being dropped.
A policer is a yes/no question about the rate at
which traffic is entering a queue.
If the packet is about to enter a queue below a given rate,
take one action (allow the enqueuing).
If the packet is about to enter a queue above a given rate,
take another action.
Although the policer uses a token bucket
mechanism internally, it does not have the capability
to delay a packet as a shaping mechanism does.

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Dropping Marking

Dropping discards an entire packet, flow or Marking is a mechanism by which the packet is
classification. altered.
Dropping a packet is a mechanism by which a Traffic control marking mechanisms install a DSCP
packet is discarded. on the packet itself, which is then used and
respected by other routers inside an administrative
domain

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Queues

Queues form the backdrop for all of traffic control A queue becomes much more interesting when
and are the integral concept behind scheduling coupled with other mechanisms which can
In networking, a queue is the place where packets delay packets,
(our units) wait to be transmitted by the hardware rearrange,
(the service). drop and prioritize packets in multiple queues.
In the simplest model, packets are transmitted in a A queue can also use subqueues, which allow for
first-come first-serve basis (FIFO) complexity of behavior in a scheduling operation.
Without any other mechanisms, a queue doesn't
offer any promise for traffic control.
There are only two interesting actions in a queue.
Anything entering a queue is enqueued into the queue.
To remove an item from a queue is to dequeue that item.

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Classless Queuing Disciplines FIFO

FIFO, First-In First-Out It performs no shaping or rearranging of packets.

Priority FIFO It simply transmits packets as soon as it can after
receiving and queuing them.
Weighted Fair Queuing
Must have a size limit (a buffer size) to prevent it
SFQ, Stochastic Fair Queuing from overflowing in case it is unable to dequeue
ESFQ, Extended Stochastic Fair Queuing packets as quickly as it receives them
GRED, Generic Random Early Drop

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Priority FIFO

Based on a conventional FIFO

Also provides some prioritization.
It provides different bands (individual FIFOs)
for separating traffic.
The highest priority traffic (interactive flows)
are placed into band 0 and are always
serviced first. Similarly, band 1 is always
emptied of pending packets before band 2 is
dequeued.

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Weighted Fair Queuing SFQ, Stochastic Fair Queuing

The SFQ attempts to fairly distribute opportunity to transmit data to

Packets assigned different classes and sent to
different queues
But queues are weighted
Higher priority means higher weight
Process packets in each queue in round-robin
Number of packets sent from each queue based on weight
the network among an arbitrary number of flows.
It accomplishes this by using a hash function to separate the traffic
into separate (internally maintained) FIFOs which are dequeued in a
round-robin fashion.
Because there is the possibility for unfairness to manifest in the
choice of hash function, this function is altered periodically.
Unfortunately, some clever software (e.g. Kazaa and eMule among
others) obliterate the benefit of this attempt at fair queuing by
opening as many TCP sessions (flows) as can be sustained.
In many networks, with well-behaved users, SFQ can adequately
distribute the network resources to the contending flows, but other
measures may be called for when obnoxious applications have
invaded the network.

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ESFQ, Extended Stochastic Fair Queuing

Conceptually, is no different than SFQ although it

allows the user to control more parameters than its
simpler cousin.
Was conceived to overcome the shortcoming of
SFQ identified above. By allowing the user to control
which hashing algorithm is used for distributing
access to network bandwidth, it is possible for the
user to reach a fairer real distribution of bandwidth.

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GRED, Generic Random Early Drop Classful Queuing Disciplines

Theory declares that a RED algorithm is useful on a Classful queuing is very useful if you have different
backbone or core network, but not as useful near the kinds of traffic which should have differing treatment.
end-user. A Classful queue can also divide bandwidth
The idea behind RED is to provide, as soon as is Three classful queues: CBQ Class Based Queuing,
possible, a feedback to responsive flows (like TCP) HTB Hierarchical Token Bucket, PRIO
before the queue overflows in an effort to indicate that
congestion is imminent, instead of waiting until the
congestion has become excessive.
Also, packet drops are distributed more fairly across all
flows.
GRED applies RED to several queues

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