Congestion and Congestion

Control

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 Congestion
• Congestion : two or more nodes would
simultaneously try to transmit packets
to one node, there is a high probability
that the number of packets would
exceed the packet handling Capacity of
network

• Congestion control : Process of

maintaining the number of packets in
a network below a certain level.
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Congestion

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 Causes of Congestion
• Finite queue Length.
• Slow processor speed.
• Limited bandwidth.
• Limitation of Link capability.
• Non-uniformity of arrival of packets.

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 Principles of Congestion Control
• Open Loop
• Attempt to solve the problem by good
design but does not works at run time.

• Closed Loop
• Based on the principle of feedback loop.
Monitor the system to detect when and
where the congestion occurs, adjust the
system operation to correct the
problem.
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 Congestion Control Methods

1. Warning Bit
2. Choke packets
3. Load Shedding
4. Jitter control
5. Overprovision
6. Buffering
7. Traffic Shaping
8. Resource Allocation
9. Packet Scheduling
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 1. Warning Bit
• Special bit in the packet header is set by
the router to warn the source when the
congestion is detected.

• This bit is send to the sender in the ACK.

• Sender monitors the number of ACK

packets it receives with the warning bit
set and adjust its transmission rate
accordingly.
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 2. Choke Packets
• Router sends the choke packet back to
the source in alarming situation.

• Choke Packets contains destination

address, so the source will not generate
any more packets along the path.

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2. Choke Packets

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 3. Load Shedding
• Random Early Detection (RED) is a
proactive approach in which router
discards packets before the buffer
becomes completely full.

• Each time a packet comes, it computes

the average queue length. If it is greater
than upper threshold, congestion is
assumed to be serious and the packet
is discarded.
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 Jitter Control
• Jitter is a variation in delay for packets
belonging to the same flow.

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 4. Jitter Control
• Jitter is a variation in delay for packets
belonging to the same flow.

• Router checks the arriving packets to see

how much the packet is behind and
ahead of the schedule. This information is
stored in the packet and updated on each
hop.

• If packet is ahead of the schedule, it is

held and if it is a behind schedule, router
tries to get it out the door quickly. 12
Quality of Service

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 Methods

• Overprovision
• Buffering
• Traffic Shaping
• Leaky Bucket Algorithm
• Token Bucket Algorithm
• Resource Reservation
• Packet Scheduling

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 5. Overprovision

• Over provisioning of
• Router capacity
• Buffer space
• Bandwidth.

• Very Expensive

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 6. Buffering

• Wait until buffer becomes full and

Smoothen the output stream.
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 7. Traffic Shaping

• Smooth out the traffic on the server

rather on the client side.

• Two algorithms
• Leaky Bucket Algorithm
• Token Bucket Algorithm

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7A. Leaky Bucket Algorithm

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7B. Token Bucket Algorithm

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 Difference
• LB discards packets while TB discards
tokens.

• In LB, a packet can be transmitted if the

bucket is not full. In TB, A packet can only
be transmitted of there are enough tokens to
cover its length in bytes.

• LB sends the packets at an average rate and

TB It allows for large bursts to be sent faster
by speeding up the output. 20
 8. Resource Reservation

• Once the route is fixed, all resources

are allocated to that route.

• Three types of resource are reserved:

• Bandwidth
• Buffer space
• CPU cycles

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9. Packet Scheduling

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Firewall

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 Firewall

• Packet Filter
• Application Level Firewalls
• Circuit Level Firewalls

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 Firewall
• A firewall examines all traffic routed
between the two networks to see if it
meets certain criteria (as defined by local
security policy). If it does, it is routed
between the networks otherwise it is
blocked.

• It may be hardware device or software

program running on secure host
computer. They can be a part of router.
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 Firewall
• A firewall will be kept at junction point or
gateway between the two networks.

• Firewall can also manage public access to

private networked resources such as host
applications.

• Firewall technology generally falls into two

classes : Network level and application
level.
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 Types of Firewall
• Packet Filters.
• Application level firewalls.
• Circuit level firewalls.

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 1. Packet Filters
• Each packet is compared to a set of
criteria before it if forwarded. Criteria
includes Source and destination IP
address, port numbers and protocol used
and TCP ACK flag.

• Packet filters extracts the information it

needs from the packet header and all
rules are checked one after another.

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 1. Packet Filters
• Router with packet filtering capability is
called as Screening Router.

• Such routers has two modules –

Inspection module which checks the
header information and State evaluation
module which checks ACK flag.

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 1. Packet Filters
• Advantages
• Low cost
• Low impact on network performance.

• Disadvantages
• They cannot hide the network topology.
• Can not support all Internet applications.
• Vulnerable to attacks at protocol higher
than the network layer protocol.
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 2. Application level Firewalls
• These are also known as proxies and they
are application specific. They can filter the
packets at the application layer.

• The user contacts the gateway using a

TCP/IP application such as telnet or FTP
and gateway asks the user for the name of
the remote host to be accessed.

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 2. Application level firewalls
• When the user responds and provides a valid
user ID and authentication information, the
gateways contacts the application on the
remote host and relays TCP segments
containing the application data between two
endpoints.

• These are more secure than packet filters.

They are easy to configure and can hide
private network topology. It also supports
user level authentication.

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 3. Circuit level firewalls
• They works at the session layer.
Information passed to the remote
computer through a circuit level gateway
appears to have originated from the
gateway.

• These are relatively inexpensive and have

the advantage of hiding information about
the private network they protect.

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