Distributed network flow control based on dynamic competitive markets

Network applications require a certain level of network performance for their proper operation. These individual guarantees can be provided if sufficient amounts of network resources are available; however, contention for the limited network resources may occur. For this reason, networks use flow control to manage network resources fairly and efficiently. This paper presents a distributed microeconomic flow control technique, that models the network as competitive markets. In these markets switches price their link bandwidth based on supply and demand, and users purchase bandwidth so as to maximize their individual quality of service (QoS). This decentralized flow control method provides a Pareto optimal and equitable (QoS-fair) bandwidth distribution. Simulation results using actual MPEG-compressed video traffic show utilization over 95% and better QoS control than max-min.

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