RFC 1254 (rfc1254) - Page 1 of 25
Gateway Congestion Control Survey
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group A. Mankin
Request for Comments: 1254 MITRE
K. Ramakrishnan
Digital Equipment Corporation
Editors
August 1991
Gateway Congestion Control Survey
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. It is a
survey of some of the major directions and issues. It does not
specify an Internet standard. Distribution of this memo is
unlimited.
Abstract
The growth of network intensive Internet applications has made
gateway congestion control a high priority. The IETF Performance and
Congestion Control Working Group surveyed and reviewed gateway
congestion control and avoidance approaches. The purpose of this
paper is to present our review of the congestion control approaches,
as a way of encouraging new discussion and experimentation. Included
in the survey are Source Quench, Random Drop, Congestion Indication
(DEC Bit), and Fair Queueing. The task remains for Internet
implementors to determine and agree on the most effective mechanisms
for controlling gateway congestion.
1. Introduction
Internet users regularly encounter congestion, often in mild forms.
However, severe congestion episodes have been reported also; and
gateway congestion remains an obstacle for Internet applications such
as scientific supercomputing data transfer. The need for Internet
congestion control originally became apparent during several periods
of 1986 and 1987, when the Internet experienced the "congestion
collapse" condition predicted by Nagle [Nag84]. A large number of
widely dispersed Internet sites experienced simultaneous slowdown or
cessation of networking services for prolonged periods. BBN, the
firm responsible for maintaining the then backbone of the Internet,
the ARPANET, responded to the collapse by adding link capacity
[Gar87].
Much of the Internet now uses as a transmission backbone the National
Science Foundation Network (NSFNET). Extensive monitoring and
capacity planning are being done for the NSFNET backbone; still, as
Performance and Congestion Control Working Group