A Rate-Matching Packet Scheduler for Real-Rate Applications

A packet scheduler is an operating system component that controls the allocation of network interface bandwidth to outgoing network flows. By deciding which packet to send next, packet schedulers not only determine how bandwidth is shared among flows, but also play a key role in determining the rate and timing behavior of individual flows. The recent explosion of rate and timing-sensitive flows, particularly in the context of multimedia applications, has focused new interest on packet schedulers. Next generation packet schedulers must not only ensure separation among flows and meet real-time performance constraints, they must also support dynamic fine-grain reallocation of bandwidth for flows with variable-bit-rate requirements. Unfortunately, today’s packet schedulers either do not support rate and timing sensitive flows, or do so with reservation systems that are relatively coarse-grain and inflexible. This paper makes two contributions. First it shows how bandwidth requirements can be inferred directly from real-rate flows, without requiring explicit specifications from the application. Second, it presents the design, implementation and performance evaluation of a rate-matching packet scheduler that uses these inferred requirements to automatically and dynamically control the bandwidth allocation to flows.