An asynchronous, distributed flow control algorithm for rate allocation in computer networks

An asynchronous, distributed algorithm is presented that determines the optimal transmission rate allocation in computer networks with virtual circuit routing. The flow control problem is formulated as a gradient hill-climbing algorithm. It is distributed, since the entry node for each virtual circuit iteratively computes the rate allocation for that virtual circuit. The entry node communicates with the associated user during each interaction and obtains information about the rest of the network by sending control packets along the virtual circuit. It is shown that all of the necessary information to solve the optimization problem can be obtained in this fashion and that the algorithm will converge, even though there is no synchronization between nodes and some computations are made with outdated information