A Hierarchical Deficit Round-Robin Scheduling Algorithm for a High Level of Fair Service

Abstract

For the last several decades, many researches have been performed to distribute bandwidth fairly between sessions. In this problem, the most important challenge is to realize a scalable implementation and high fairness simultaneously. Here high fairness means that bandwidth is distributed fairly even in short time intervals. Unfortunately, existing scheduling algorithms either are lack of scalable implementation or can achieve low fairness. In this paper, we propose a scheduling algorithm that can achieve feasible fairness without losing scalability. The proposed algorithm is a Hierarchical Deficit Round-Robin (H-DRR). While H-DRR requires a constant time for implementation, the achievable fairness is similar to that of Packet-by-Packet Generalized Processor Sharing (PGPS) algorithm. PGPS has worse scalability since it uses a sorted-priority queue requiring O(logN) implementation complexity where N is the number of sessions.