Rate Control of Elastic Traffic with QoS Guarantees: a Stability Analysis & Experimental Implementation

A dynamical systems theory of source rate control in packet networks, based on nonlinear optimization techniques, hits been developed recently and applied to improving the performance of TCP and similar algorithms. However this research has been conducted within the best effort context. In this paper we consider a different context, that of a service provider offering an elastic service with a guaranteed minimum rate and applying rate control at the provider edge devices. We apply the basic theoretical model to the simple case of a single node with multiple sources and provide an analytical characterization of the stability requirements. An experimental implementation is described which attempts to capture the essential traffic control features of a future virtual network provider operating in a programmable network environment.