DINT-Based DWRR: Decentralized INT-Based Packet Scheduling Method for Multipath Communication

Abstract

Multipath communication is a technique that utilizes multipath transmission to improve network transmission efficiency. Multipath transport protocols like MPTCP usually require complex signaling control and lack adaptability to instantaneous network changes. The advent of programmable switches and INT has addressed these issues to some extent. In this paper, we propose DINT-Based DWRR (Decentralised INT-Based Dynamic Weight Round Robin), a dynamic weight round-robin packet scheduler based on non-centralized telemetry technology. It aims to collect telemetry information and update path weights with millisecond granularity, and efficiently achieve load balancing while reducing telemetry overhead. The core idea of DINT-Based DWRR is to leverage data-plane programmability to achieve the convergence of the forwarding node and the computing node. The forwarding nodes forward the packets using the DWRR (Dynamic Weight Round Robin) method and periodically generate telemetry messages. The computing nodes are dispersed across the forwarding nodes and efficiently update weights to the forwarding nodes. After testing in various experimental scenarios, it is proven that DINT-Based DWRR can provide better scheduling policies, reduce the link packet loss rate, and increase link bandwidth utilization.