WinCM: A Window based Congestion Control Mechanism for NDN

Named Data Networking (NDN) architecture inherits the hourglass shape of IP, whereas the narrow waist part is changed from IP addresses to content names. In NDN architecture, consumers can retrieve data from multiple content chunks and through multiple paths by sending Interest packets carrying a given name rather than data objects’ location. These new features lead to the invalidation of end-to-end congestion control mechanisms. In this paper, we propose a novel window based congestion control mechanism (WinCM) to support high-throughput applications in NDN. WinCM contains three modules: Active Queue Management (AQM) module, Consumer Window Adjustment module and Forwarding Strategy module. AQM module detects congestion by monitoring packet-sojourn time and notices consumers and downstream nodes along delivery path. AQM keeps marking each Data packets that are dequeued continuously for the duration of a queue delay, so that consumers can decrease their windows every time they receive a congestion tag. Simultaneously, each downstream node’s Forwarding Strategy module can accurately and instantly adjust the per-interface Unsatisfied Interest Window, which is one of parameters recorded in Measurements Table to decide how to forward Interest packets and avoid congestion. Simulations based on ndnSIM show that WinCM can exploit available bandwidth faster and maximize bandwidth utilization while maintaining lower queue delay.