On Providing Fair Circuit/Virtual-Circuit Networking Services

It has become clear that widespread collaboration in the scientific community, which can increasingly be characterized by geographically distributed and large-scale projects, requires predictable network service. Predictable network service needed by applications such as large file transfers, remote visualization, and remote instrumentation can only be offered on connection-oriented networks. Circuit-switched and virtual-circuit networks offer such connection-oriented services.

This dissertation addresses four issues that inhibit wider adoption of connection-oriented service. From a theoretical perspective, we address reservation systems and queueing systems. An important consideration for a reservation system with multiple classes, as are necessary to provide a level of service matched with a specific use, is fairness. First, we present a novel three-step scheduling algorithm that finds the optimal solution to a multi-class, fairness-considering bin packing problem, and demonstrate how it can be used to ensure fairness in a reservation system. Second, with many types of reservation systems across different disciplines, we recognize a need for a uniform way to describe reservation systems, and so present a novel general reservation system model (GRSM), and analyze several examples of commonly encountered reservation and queueing systems to understand why certain systems belonging to the same category of examples use reservation systems while others use queueing systems.

From an experimental perspective, we address performance and deployment issues with connection-oriented service. First, data-plane performance is paramount to being able to provide satisfactory connection-oriented service. To address this, we have performed an in-depth experimental study of the data-plane issues that arise in circuits, as well as comparing existing transport protocols to a novel implementation designed for circuits. Finally, to provide connection-oriented service to end hosts, we present a solution that allows an off-the-shelf physical switch to be virtualized into multiple logical switches. Thus, connection-oriented service could be provided on the same existing substrate as connectionless service with no new infrastructure expenditures.