In this paper, we take a novel approach at service differentiation in packet-switched networks. Existing mechanisms for delay control and differentiation typically require some form of explicit resource allocation and consequently, admission control. We propose incentive-compatible differentiated scheduling as a basic building block for Internet service provisioning. This scheduling scheme enables policy-free approximate service differentiation without admission control, for example at Internet peering exchanges. In addition, the same building block can also facilitate precise service differentiation in combination with several forms of admission control. We present the basic design of a scheduling algorithm and discuss its implementation details and design alternatives. We prove that the algorithm has strong game-theoretic properties and present some initial simulations illustrating the effect of this scheduler on Internet traffic.
Fourth Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks (HotNets IV)
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