Start-Time Fair Queueing: A Scheduling Algorithm for Integrated Services Packet Switching Networks

Abstract-- We present a Start-time Fair Queueing (SFQ) algorithm that is computationally efficient and achieves fairness regardless of variation in a server capacity. We analyze its single server and end-to-end deadline guarantee for variable rate Fluctuation Constrained (FC) and Exponentially Bounded Fluctuation (EBF) servers. To support heterogeneous services and multiple protocol families in integrated services networks, we present a hierarchical SFQ scheduler and derive its performance bounds. Our analysis demonstrates that SFQ is suitable for integrated services networks since it: 1) achieves low average as well as maximum delay for low-throughput applications (e.g., interactive audio, telnet, etc.); 2) provides fairness which is desirable for VBR video; 3) provides fairness, regardless of variation in server capacity, for throughput-intensive, flow-controlled data applications; 4) enables hierarchical link sharing which is desirable for managing heterogeneity; and 5) is computati...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1996
• Where: SIGCOMM
• Authors: Pawan Goyal, Harrick M. Vin, Haichen Cheng
• Keywords: Communications, Computationally Efficient, Integrated Services Networks, Server Capacity, SIGCOMM 1996