{"618406":{"#nid":"618406","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Researchers Improve Network Traffic Management ","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EEvery large network \u0026mdash; from the internet to datacenter networks \u0026mdash; needs a way to manage traffic. But as traffic volumes increase, existing packet scheduling tools used to manage flow become less effective.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EUsing a new approach, School of Computer Science (SCS) researchers have created a flexible packet scheduling software system that is scalable and up to 40 times faster than existing scheduling software tools.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EUnlike existing tools, the new scheduling system \u0026ndash; known as Eiffel \u0026ndash; uses a modified priority queue to efficiently rank and re-rank packets.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EThe power of packet scheduling\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBalancing a network\u0026rsquo;s traffic requires considering a lot of complex factors. If there are too many requests at once, it won\u0026rsquo;t run efficiently. Yet not all those requests are of the same importance so prioritizing them is essential.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EMany networks rely on packet scheduling to handle the volume. When traffic exceeds capacity, packets are queued. Scheduling decides which packet to take next.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESCS Regents\u0026rsquo; Professor \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/fac\/Mostafa.Ammar\/\u0022\u003EMostafa Ammar\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E compares packet scheduling to plumbing.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;If you try to put water in a pipe too fast, it might overflow,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;But if you put the water through a bucket and put a hole in the bucket, it would control the flow. You can make the hole wider or smaller to let it drip at certain rate.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs central processing units (CPUs) get more memory, they can handle more requests. Network scheduling techniques, however, aren\u0026rsquo;t keeping up because existing scheduling tools weren\u0026rsquo;t designed to scale to meet growing traffic volumes. Another research problem in packet scheduling is how to allow for complex scheduling (for example, pushing a bank transaction ahead of video streaming) and improved performance.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scs.gatech.edu\/news\/612371\/mostafa-ammar-studying-history-internet-find-its-future\u0022\u003E[RELATED: Mostafa Ammar is Studying the History of the Internet to Find Its Future]\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAn efficient and flexible system\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETo increase efficiency, Eiffel uses a modified ranking function with find first set (FFS) bit operation to order packets in the queue based on their rank. To do so, an annotation mode first ranks a packet\u0026rsquo;s priority, then an enqueuer component calculates its rank and adds it to a queue in order of its priority.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EEiffel also features a dequeuer component that can re-rank packets as needed for certain scheduling algorithms. The team\u0026rsquo;s novel use of FFS queues allows them to process large volume of packets without losing any CPU efficiency.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETo make Eiffel flexible, researchers introduced new programming language abstractions. These make the program general enough to create ad hoc scheduling policies as needed.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESCS Ph.D. student \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~amsmti3\/\u0022\u003EAhmed Saeed\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/strong\u003Estarted this work as part of a Google internship and published \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~amsmti3\/files\/carousel-sigcomm17.pdf\u0022\u003Ea paper\u003C\/a\u003E on improving a specific scheduling algorithm last year. After his colleagues at Google expressed interest in addressing more complex scheduling issues, too, he made it a focus of his research, leading to Eiffel that improves the efficiency of all scheduling algorithms.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;It really comes down to the number of flows a single server handles,\u0026rdquo; he said. \u0026ldquo;If we have a generally efficient building block that can handle large numbers of flows efficiently, we can also provide flexibility to implement multiple scheduling algorithms quite easily.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scs.gatech.edu\/news\/598666\/georgia-tech-scs-phd-student-earns-prestigious-google-fellowship\u0022\u003E[RELATED: Georgia Tech SCS Ph.D. Student Earns Prestigious Google Fellowship]\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers evaluated Eiffel in three network settings to ensure its performance in a variety of scenarios. Depending on the environment, Eiffel performs from five to 40 times better than other scheduling software. Because of this performance, the researchers plan to make Eiffel available as an open source tool.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESaeed said Eiffel represents a huge step forward in software packet schedulers, but he wants to continue improving its flexibility. The programming language for schedulers in Eiffel is very low level right now and needs specific instructions to be effective. The researchers plan to make the language even more abstract, so it can be more adaptable in future research.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ESaeed will present the paper, \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~amsmti3\/files\/eiffel_nsdi19.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EEiffel: Efficient and Flexible Software Packet Scheduling\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, at USENIX\u0026rsquo;s \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.usenix.org\/conference\/nsdi19\u0022\u003ESymposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation\u003C\/a\u003E (NSDI) in Boston, Massachusetts, from Feb. 26 to 28. He coauthored it with SCS Ph.D. student \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/yimeng-zhao-69671094\/\u0022\u003EYimeng Zhao\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E, Stephen Fleming Chair for Telecommunications Professor \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.scs.gatech.edu\/people\/11077\/ellen-zeguras\u0022\u003EEllen Zegura\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E, Ammar, Google software engineer \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ai.google\/research\/people\/author39115\u0022\u003ENandita Dukkipati\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E, Google Fellow \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/ai.google\/research\/people\/AminVahdat\u0022\u003EAmin Vahdat\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E, and Carnegie Mellon Qatar Associate Professor \u003Cstrong\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.qatar.cmu.edu\/directory\/khaled-harras\/\u0022\u003EKhaled Harras\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"SCS researchers have an influential packet scheduling paper at NSDI."}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2019-02-25 16:55:48","changed_gmt":"2019-02-26 17:00:38","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2019-02-25T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2019-02-25T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"618451":{"id":"618451","type":"image","title":"Packet Scheduling Graphic","body":null,"created":"1551144516","gmt_created":"2019-02-26 01:28:36","changed":"1551144516","gmt_changed":"2019-02-26 01:28:36","alt":"Graphic of people in a line","file":{"fid":"235400","name":"722553_group_512x512.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/722553_group_512x512.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/722553_group_512x512.png","mime":"image\/png","size":21990,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/722553_group_512x512.png?itok=S90_38MN"}}},"media_ids":["618451"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cdiv\u003E\r\n\u003Cdiv\u003E\r\n\u003Cdiv\u003E\r\n\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Communications Officer\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tess.malone@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Etess.malone@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\u003C\/div\u003E\r\n\u003C\/div\u003E\r\n\u003C\/div\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["tess.malone@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}