Efficient switch-assisted congestion control for data centers: An implementation and evaluation
Ahmed M. Abdelmoniem, Brahim Bensaou · International Performance, Computing, and Communications Conference · 2015
This paper discusses the implementation of RWNDQ, a switch-assisted algorithm to improve TCP's congestion control in data center networks (DCNs). In particular we demonstrate how this switch-driven congestion control algorithm can be deployed in a data center via a few simple modifications to the switch software. The proposed mechanism enables the switch to modify the TCP receive-window field in the packet headers to enforce a sending rate at the source, thus avoiding modification to the TCP source or receiver code. This paper describes in detail two implementations, one as a Linux kernel module and the second as an added feature to the well known software switch, Open vSwitch and presents some experimental results from their deployment in a small testbed to demonstrate the effectiveness of RWNDQ in achieving high throughput, a good fairness and short flow completion times for delay-sensitive flows1.