Implementation and validation of BLUE and PI queue disciplines in ns-3

Abstract

High queuing delay arising out of the bufferbloat problem has reignited research in the area of Active Queue Management (AQM). The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has created a new working group to discuss the deployment feasibility of existing and upcoming AQM algorithms (or queuing disciplines) in the Internet. Network simulations are essential to gain an accurate and deep understanding of the network algorithms before they are deployed in the Internet. ns-3 is among the most widely used network simulators, and the recent addition of Linux-like traffic control subsystem in ns-3 makes it highly suitable and reliable for studying the performance of queuing disciplines. However, the current traffic control subsystem in ns-3 has very few queuing disciplines. In an effort to provide support for more queuing disciplines and foster active research in this area, we implement two popular algorithms in ns-3: BLUE and Proportional Integral controller (PI). This paper discusses the implementation and validation of the proposed models in ns-3, and presents a detailed comparative study of both queuing disciplines based on the evaluation guidelines provided in RFC 7928. 2018 Elsevier B.V.