EE534 Communication and Computer Network Simulation Queuing Disciplines Order of Packet Transmission and Dropping Name: Duong

Le Due: 4/10/2013

I. Objective: The objective of this lab is to examine the effect of different queuing disciplines on packet delivery and delay for different services. II. Over view: As part of the resource allocation mechanisms, each router must implement some queuing discipline that governs how packets are buffered while waiting to be transmitted. Various queuing disciplines can be used to control which packets get transmitted (bandwidth allocation) and which packets get dropped (buffer space). The queuing discipline also affects the latency experienced by a packet, by determining how long a packet waits to be transmitted. Examples of the common queuing disciplines are first-in-firstout (FIFO) queuing, priority queuing (PQ), and weighted-fair queuing (WFQ). The idea of FIFO queuing is that the first packet that arrives at a router is the first packet to be transmitted. Given that the amount of buffer space at each router is fini te, if a packet arrives and the queue (buffer space) is full, then the router discards (drops) that packet. This is done without regard to which flow the packet belongs to or how important the packet is. PQ is a simple variation of the basic FIFO queuing. The idea is to mark each packet with a priority; the mark could be carried, for example, in the IP Type of Service (ToS) field. The routers then implement multiple FIFO queues, one for each priority class. Within each priority, packets are still managed in a FIFO manner. This queuing discipline allows high-priority packets to cut to the front of the line. The idea of the fair queuing (FQ) discipline is to maintain a separate queue for each flow currently being handled by the router. The router then services these queues in a round-robin manner. WFQ allows a weight to be assigned to each flow (queue). This weight effectively controls the percentage of the links bandwidth each flow will get. We could use ToS bits in the IP header to identify that weight. In this lab you will set up a network that carries three appli cations: FTP, Video, and VoIP. You will study how the choice of the queuing discipline in the routers can affect the performance of the applications and the utilization of the network resources.

III. Implementation: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Create a New Project Create and configure the Network Configure the simulation Duplicate and configure the Scenario to get Drop_NoFast Scenario and Drop_Fast Scenario Run the Simulation View and compare the Results

IV. Results:

Figure 1: Network

Figure 2: IP Traffic Dropped

Figure 3: Video Conferencing Traffic Received

Figure 4: Voice Traffic Received

Figure 5: Voice Packet End-to-End Delay (sec)

Figure 6: Voice Packet Delay

V. Exercises: 1. Figure 2 shows the IP traffic dropped of three scenarios. As shown in the graphs, the FIFO queuing discipline has the highest rate of dropped packets. The WFQ queuing discipline has the lowest rate of dropped packets. The reason is the FIFO drops packets only depending on its arrival time, not the flow the packet belongs to. The PQ and WFQ disciplines implement multiple FIFO queues and provide a service that depends on the ToS value associated with the packets. Figure 3 and figure 4 shows the Video conference and VoIP traffic of three scenarios. As shown in the graphs, the WFQ queuing discipline has the best performance in both cases. The PQ discipline provides the same performance as WFQ for the VoIP traffic but for the Video traffic, the PQ discipline has the worst performance. The FIFO queuing discipline does not provide a stable traffic in both cases. This is because the default queue sizes in the PQ profile smaller than the queue size in the FIFO and WFQ profiles. The PQ queuing discipline assigns its limited size queues to the highest-priority traffic, which is the Voice traffic. Figure 5 and figure 6 shows the Voice Packet End-to-End Delay and Voice Packet Delay Variation of three scenarios. As show in the graphs, WFQ and PQ queuing discipline have the same performance. For the FIFO queuing discipline, the voice packets has higher delay and unstable. WFQ and PQ queuing discipline are better than the FIFO queuing discipline. 2. a/ Discipline FIFO WFQ PQ Number of Queue 1 8 4

b/ Other parameters that can be used to identify the priority and weight: c/ d/ Protocol Based Port Based DSCP

3.

Figure 7: point to point queuing delay

The above graph shows the queuing delay for the FIFO, PQ, and WFQ disciplines. The FIFO queuing discipline has the highest delay. The PQ and WFQ disciplines have the same performance and provide better performance than FIFO queuing discipline.