On the Benefits of Traffic "Reprofiling" -- The Multiple Hops Case -- Part II

TL;DR

This paper investigates how traffic reprofiling can improve delay guarantees in packet networks using static priority and FIFO schedulers, through optimization and algorithms, with evaluations showing its benefits.

Contribution

It introduces a joint optimization framework for traffic reprofiling in simple schedulers and demonstrates its effectiveness through extensive evaluations.

Findings

Reprofiling flows reduces bandwidth requirements for delay guarantees.

Reprofiling benefits are consistent across realistic and synthetic topologies.

More complex reprofiling solutions enhance scheduler performance.

Abstract

Delivering hard delay guarantees over packet networks is increasingly important to applications ranging from automotive systems, avionics, industrial control, etc. Traffic control and schedulers play an essential role in enforcing such guarantees. In this paper, we focus on ``simple'' static priority and FIFO schedulers, and explore how reprofiling flows entering the network, i.e., proactively shaping them to a different traffic profile, can deliver delay guarantees with less bandwidth. To that end, we formulate a joint optimization framework and develop efficient algorithms to solve it. Extensive evaluations across both realistic and synthetic topologies demonstrate that, as with more sophisticated schedulers, reprofiling flows is beneficial. They also highlight an intuitive coupling between a scheduler's capability and its ability to leverage more complex reprofiling solutions.