Congestion-Responsive Queuing for Internet Flows

IEEE Network Operations and Management Symposium (NOMS), pp. 01–10

Abstract

Internet congestion management is once again undergoing radical change: QUIC has ignited a cambrian explosion in congestion control (CC) implementations while the many versions of BBR alone have increased the diversity in algorithms used with TCP, both making the congestion landscape more complex. At the same time, the interplay of CC and AQM is also evolving but congestion unresponsiveness remains a threat. In particular, L4S crucially requires a fine-grained CC and AQM interaction to provide its benefits and suffers from unresponsive traffic. Overall, we need more responsive traffic on the Internet as well as mechanisms that can cope with unresponsiveness. We present Congestion-Responsive Queuing (CRQ), our L4S-inspired system which is designed to promote responsive CC, manage unresponsive traffic, and handle QUIC and TCP flows alike. Similar to L4S, CRQ uses two queues for flow isolation. Yet, in contrast to L4S, we isolate flows based on their actual congestion responsiveness, moving responsive flows to one queue and leaving the remaining flows in the other. Our evaluation with an eBPF prototype highlights the efficacy of our design and shows that CRQ can provide effective incentives for responsive CC.

Authors 6

1. Ike Kunze Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Aachen,Germany

2. Constantin Sander Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Aachen,Germany

3. Mike Kosek

   Technical University of Munich

   Affiliation as printed

   Technical University of Munich,Munich,Germany

4. Lars Tissen Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Aachen,Germany

5. Jan Pennekamp Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Aachen,Germany

6. Klaus Wehrle Aachen

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University,Aachen,Germany