Department of Computer Science

Department information

 

Seminar Congestion Control and Fairness, Spring 2008

The Seminar

Teacher: Jussi Kangasharju

Time and location: Periods III-IV, Mon 14-16 C221

Introduction

Congestion control is an important topic in packet-switched networks. It determines how different entities are allowed to send traffic into the network. In other words, congestion control decides how the limited resources of the network should be shared between all the interested parties. How the resources are shared can have a major impact on the performance of the different applications using the network.

A closely related concept is that of fairness. Fairness is an intuitively well-understood concept, since everyone has a rough intuitive concept of what is "fair" in any given situation. However, translating that intuitive concept of fairness into an actual congestion control algorithm is a very challenging problem.

In this seminar, we will take a closer look at different congestion control algorithms and extend the discussion into fairness. In the area of congestion control algorithms, we will study TCP congestion control as well as several different variants developed for different purposes. In the area of fairness, we attempt to provide a definition of what is fairness and how should fairness be reflected in congestion control algorithms.

Structure of the Seminar

The language of the seminar is English.

To pass the seminar, you need to do the following four tasks:

1. Write a paper about a topic agreed during the first meetings,
2. Review two papers written by other students,
3. Prepare a presentation and discuss it with the other students, and
4. Participate in the seminar by asking questions, raising discussions on the topic, and reviewing other students' work.

During Period III all students write their papers in English. The length of the paper is 7-10 pages formatted according to the IEEE Transactions guidelines. The oral presentations, during Period IV, should last for about 35-40 minutes, which should leave some time for questions.

IEEE guidelines for the paper (Latex and Word) can be found from the IEEE Transaction author guide: http://www.ieee.org/pubs/authors.html

A good book to writing understandable English is The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. It is a classic book. Although it was originally published in 1918, most, if not all, of its content is still valid.

Topics

The papers and presentation slides will be published in this seminar page later. The topics in the seminar are:

1. Basic TCP Congestion Control
2. RED and Active Queue Management
3. Explicit Congestion Notification
4. FAST TCP
5. BIC TCP
6. UDT: UDP-Based Data Transfer
7. TCP-Friendly Rate Control
8. Datagram Congestion Control Protocol
9. Fairness: Definition
10. Utilities
11. Fairness: Dismantling a Religion
12. Price Discrimination and Networks

The list of topics is a priori restricted to the above list and the order of presentations will roughly follow the same schedule. Topics from outside of the above list must be approved before the first meeting on 14.1. (NOT in the meeting).

You can find guidelines for writing from the Tieteellinen Kirjoittaminen/ Scientific Writing course page.

Further help is also available from the Writing Center of UW Madison. It contains useful information about how to quote and cite work of others. The center's main web page contains general information about different kinds of citation styles. We are using the IEEE Transactions style which has its own citation style defined in the templates.

Schedule

The seminar is divided into two phases. During the first phase (Period III), students write their papers, with guidance from Jussi if needed. The presentations take place during the second phase (Period IV), we will have two presentations from the students each week.

The topics will be assigned during the first meeting.

The preliminary schedule is as follows: (dates and assignments subject to change before the start of the seminar)

First phase:	Writing the paper
1: 14.1.	Introduction Slides
2: 21.1.	List of references - refinements
3: 28.1.	Presentation on how to do seminar Slides
3: 28.1.	Title and Table of contents
4: 11.2.	First draft (to show to Jussi)
7: 25.2.	No meeting (exam week)
Paper ready:	Monday 3.3.
Second phase:	Presentations: Mon 14-16 C221
10.3.	Anthony Claret and Eemil Lagerspetz
17.3.	Marko Kankaanniemi and Olli Björkqvist
24.3.	Easter, no seminar
31.3.	Ossi Karkulahti and Mika Karlstedt
7.4.	Rami Järvinen, Mikko Herranen, and Krishnan Narayanan
14.4.	Lauri Peltonen and Barack Onduto
21.4.	Jasvinder Singh and Juha-Matti Tapio

Reviews

Everybody has to review two papers written by other students. Each review has a public ja private part.

The deadline for the review is the date when the presentation is scheduled according to the above schedule. If you have not yet received the paper, the deadline will be assigned when you receive the paper.

Review assignments:

• Basic TCP Congestion Control: Mikko Herranen, Lauri Peltonen
• RED and Active Queue Management: Jasvinder Singh, Krishnan Narayanan
• Explicit Congestion Notification: Mika Karlstedt, Barack Onduto
• FAST TCP:
• BIC TCP: Mika Karlstedt, Jasvinder Singh
• UDT: UDP-Based Data Transfer: Ossi Karkulahti, Juha-Matti Tapio
• TCP-Friendly Rate Control:
• Datagram Congestion Control Protocol: Marko Kankaanniemi, Ossi Karkulahti
• Sampling of TCP Window Sizes: Anthony Claret, Eemil Lagerspetz
• Fairness: Definition: Krishnan Narayanan, Barack Onduto
• Utilities: Mikko Herranen, Lauri Peltonen
• Fairness: Dismantling a Religion: Eemil Lagerspetz, Juha-Matti Tapio
• Price Discrimination and Networks: Anthony Claret, Marko Kankaanniemi

A nice paper explaining the review process of a journal. You can use it as a hint when doing your own review.

Grading

Students will be graded based on i) their written paper (40%), ii) their oral presentation (40%), and iii) their activity in commenting other students' work and participating in the discussion (20%). To pass the course, the student must write the paper on the agreed subject and present his work. In addition, each student is required to attend at least 80% of the seminar presentations.

Prerequisites

All participants must have a bachelor's degree or have passed the Scientific Writing course. Background in basic networking is required.

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Jussi Kangasharju Last modified: Thu Mar 13 11:29:26 EET 2008