A buffer management mechanism for achieving approximately fair bandwidth allocation in high-speed networks

We propose a buffer management mechanism, called V-WFQ (Virtual Weighted Fair Queueing), for achieving an approximately fair allocation of bandwidth with a small amount of hardware in a high-speed network. The basic process for the allocation of bandwidth uses selective packet dropping that compares the measured input rate of the flow with an estimated fair share of bandwidth. Although V-WFQ is a hardware-efficient FIFO-based algorithm, it achieves almost ideal fairness in bandwidth allocation. V-WFQ can be implemented in the high-speed core routers of today's IP backbone networks to provide various high-quality services. We have investigated V-WFQ's performance in terms of fairness and link utilization through extensive simulation. The results of simulation show that V-WFQ achieves a good balance between fairness and link utilization under various simulation conditions.