Making A Control-Theoretic Flow Control Work in Networks: Analysis of Gateway Service Disciplines (extended abstract) Scott Shrnker Xerox PARC 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, CA 94304 1. Introduction As datagram computer networks have grown in both size and usage, network congestion has become an increasingly common problem. Recently developed f&tlhck flow control algorithms, such as those in the 4.3bsd TCP networking code, provide dramatic relief from network congestion problems. Whereas originally flow control was seen solely as a mechanism to ensure adequate bufYer resources at the receiving end of a connection, feedback flow control is designed to avoid network congestion. In feedback flow control, sources adjust their flow in response to feedback, or congestion signals, sent (either implicitly or explicitly) by network gateways. In this work we study the general properties of this approach to congestion avoidance. To this end, we introduce a simple qualitative model of feedback fow control which, while admittedly unrealistic, captures the essence of the feedback flow control approach. This model allows us to explore the qualitative implications of different design choices in feedback flow control. The first basic design choice is the nature of the congestion feedback, of which there are two
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