Enhancement of Feedback Congestion Control Mechanisms by Deploying Active Congestion Control

Active networking offers a change in the usual network paradigm: from passive carrier of bits to a more general computing engine. Active networking not only allows the network nodes to perform computations on the data but also allow their users to inject customized programs into the nodes of the network, that may modify, redirect or store the user data flowing through the network. In this thesis, we focus on the benefits of active networking with respect to a problem that is unlikely to disappear in the near future: network congestion. Rather than applying congestion reduction mechanisms generically and broadly, we discuss the mechanism that allows each application to specify how losses to its data should occur in a controlled fashion. Congestion is a prime candidate for active networking, since it is specifically an intra-network event and is potentially far removed from the application. Further, the time that is required for congestion notification information to propagate back to the sender limits the speed with which an application can selfregulate to reduce congestion. In this thesis, we propose a model for Active Congestion control, using active queue management. The SPIN verifier is used to check the correctness and completeness of the specification.

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