A hierarchical fair service curve algorithm for link-sharing, real-time, and priority services

We study hierarchical resource management models and algorithms that support both link-sharing and guaranteed real-time services with priority (decoupled delay and bandwidth allocation). We extend the service curve based quality of service (QoS) model, which defines both delay and bandwidth requirements of a class in a hierarchy, to include fairness, which is important for the integration of real-time and hierarchical link-sharing services. The resulting fair service curve (FSC) link-sharing model formalizes the goals of link-sharing, real-time and priority services and exposes the fundamental trade-offs between these goals. In particular, with decoupled delay and bandwidth allocation, it is impossible to simultaneously provide guaranteed real-time service and achieve perfect link-sharing. We propose a novel scheduling algorithm called hierarchical fair service curve (H-FSC) that approximates the model closely and efficiently. The algorithm always guarantees the service curves of leaf classes, thus ensures real-time and priority services, while trying to minimize the discrepancy between the actual services provided to and the services defined by the FSC link-sharing model for the interior classes. We have implemented the H-FSC scheduler in NetBSD. By performing analyzes, simulations and measurement experiments, we evaluate the link-sharing and real-time performances of H-FSC, and determine the computation overhead.