DeTail: reducing the flow completion time tail in datacenter networks

Web applications have now become so sophisticated that rendering a typical page may require hundreds of intra-datacenter flows. At the same time, web sites must meet strict page creation deadlines of 200-300ms to satisfy user demands for interactivity. Long-tailed flow completion times make it challenging for web sites to meet these constraints. They are forced to choose between rendering a subset of the complex page, or delay its rendering, thus missing deadlines and sacrificing either quality or responsiveness. Either option leads to potential financial loss. In this paper, we present a new cross-layer network stack aimed at reducing the long tail of flow completion times. The approach exploits cross-layer information to reduce packet drops, prioritize latency-sensitive flows, and evenly distribute network load, effectively reducing the long tail of flow completion times. We evaluate our approach through NS-3 based simulation and Click-based implementation demonstrating our a...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2012
• Where: SIGCOMM
• Authors: David Zats, Tathagata Das, Prashanth Mohan, Dhruba Borthakur, Randy H. Katz
• Keywords: Communications, Completion Times, Computer Communication Networks, Network Stack, SIGCOMM 2012