Performance of PCN-Based Admission Control Under Challenging Conditions

Precongestion notification (PCN) is a packet-marking technique for IP networks to notify egress nodes of a so-called PCN domain whether the traffic rate on some links exceeds certain configurable bounds. This feedback is used by decision points for admission control (AC) to block new flows when the traffic load is already high. PCN-based AC is simpler than other AC methods because interior routers do not need to keep per-flow states. Therefore, it is currently being standardized by the IETF. We discuss various realization options and analyze their performance in the presence of flash crowds or with multipath routing by means of simulation and mathematical modeling. Such situations can be aggravated by insufficient flow aggregation, long round-trip times, on/off traffic, delayed media, inappropriate marker configuration, and smoothed feedback.