RED-Worcester - traffic sensitive active queue management

The Internet today carries traffic for applications with a wide range of delay and throughput requirements. Traditional applications such as FTP and e-mail can tolerate high delays due to long router queues in exchange for high throughput. Unfortunately, current Internet routers do not provide a quality of service (QoS) adapted to the current traffic mix. Most active queue management (AQM) techniques are either heavy-weight by requiring significant architectural changes or focus on providing higher throughput at the router without much consideration for queuing delays. DiffServ approaches, such as assured forwarding (AF) and expedited forwarding (EF), provide differentiated service to traffic aggregates. However, they require complicated mechanisms to negotiate service level agreements. Additionally, DiffServ requires traffic monitors, markers, shapers, classifiers and droppers and a framework to enable these components to work together. We propose an extension to ARED called called RED-Worcester to improve overall QoS support at the router by satisfying the average performance requirements of incoming packets in terms of throughput and delay. While not a differential service, RED-Worcester provides a service that better matches the average requirements of all applications without adding much complexity and it requires no additional policing mechanisms, charging mechanisms or usage control.