Providing QoS with the Deficit Table Scheduler

A key component for networks with Quality of Service (QoS) support is the egress link scheduling algorithm. An ideal scheduling algorithm implemented in a high-performance network with QoS support should satisfy two main properties: good end-to-end delay and implementation simplicity. Table-based schedulers try to offer a simple implementation and good latency bounds. Some of the latest proposals of network technologies, like Advanced Switching and InfiniBand, include in their specifications one of these schedulers. However, these table-based schedulers do not work properly with variable packet sizes, as is usually the case in current network technologies. We have proposed a new table-based scheduler, which we have called Deficit Table (DTable) scheduler, that works properly with variable packet sizes. Moreover, we have proposed a methodology to configure this table-based scheduler in such a way that it permits us to decouple the bounding between the bandwidth and latency assignments. In this paper, we thoroughly review the provision of QoS with the DTable scheduler and our configuration methodology, and evaluate the performance of our proposals in a multimedia scenario. Simulation results show that our proposals are able to provide a similar latency performance than more complex scheduling algorithms. Moreover, we show the advantages of our decoupling configuration methodology over the usual ways of configuring this kind of table-based schedulers.