Skip to main content

AQM Characterization Guidelines
draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines-05

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft that was ultimately published as RFC 7928.
Authors Nicolas Kuhn , Preethi Natarajan , Naeem Khademi , David Ros
Last updated 2015-06-29
Replaces draft-kuhn-aqm-eval-guidelines
RFC stream Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
Formats
Reviews
Additional resources Mailing list discussion
Stream WG state WG Document
Document shepherd (None)
IESG IESG state Became RFC 7928 (Informational)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines-05
Internet Engineering Task Force                             N. Kuhn, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                          Telecom Bretagne
Intended status: Informational                         P. Natarajan, Ed.
Expires: December 31, 2015                                 Cisco Systems
                                                         N. Khademi, Ed.
                                                      University of Oslo
                                                                  D. Ros
                                           Simula Research Laboratory AS
                                                           June 29, 2015

                    AQM Characterization Guidelines
                   draft-ietf-aqm-eval-guidelines-05

Abstract

   Unmanaged large buffers in today's networks have given rise to a slew
   of performance issues.  These performance issues can be addressed by
   some form of Active Queue Management (AQM) mechanism, optionally in
   combination with a packet scheduling scheme such as fair queuing.
   The IETF Active Queue Management and Packet Scheduling working group
   was formed to standardize AQM schemes that are robust, easily
   implementable, and successfully deployable in today's networks.  This
   document describes various criteria for performing precautionary
   characterizations of AQM proposals.  This document also helps in
   ascertaining whether any given AQM proposal should be taken up for
   standardization by the AQM WG.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on December 31, 2015.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 1]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2015 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     1.1.  Reducing the latency and maximizing the goodput . . . . .   5
     1.2.  Guidelines for AQM evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     1.3.  Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     1.4.  Glossary  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   2.  End-to-end metrics  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     2.1.  Flow completion time  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     2.2.  Flow start up time  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     2.3.  Packet loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     2.4.  Packet loss synchronization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     2.5.  Goodput . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
     2.6.  Latency and jitter  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     2.7.  Discussion on the trade-off between latency and goodput .   9
   3.  Generic set up for evaluations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.1.  Topology and notations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     3.2.  Buffer size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     3.3.  Congestion controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
   4.  Transport Protocols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
     4.1.  TCP-friendly sender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
       4.1.1.  TCP-friendly sender with the same initial congestion
               window  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
       4.1.2.  TCP-friendly sender with different initial congestion
               windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     4.2.  Aggressive transport sender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
     4.3.  Unresponsive transport sender . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
     4.4.  Less-than Best Effort transport sender  . . . . . . . . .  15
   5.  Round Trip Time Fairness  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.1.  Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.2.  Recommended tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
     5.3.  Metrics to evaluate the RTT fairness  . . . . . . . . . .  17
   6.  Burst Absorption  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 2]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

     6.1.  Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  17
     6.2.  Recommended tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  18
   7.  Stability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     7.1.  Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
     7.2.  Recommended tests . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  19
       7.2.1.  Definition of the congestion Level  . . . . . . . . .  19
       7.2.2.  Mild congestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
       7.2.3.  Medium congestion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
       7.2.4.  Heavy congestion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
       7.2.5.  Varying the congestion level  . . . . . . . . . . . .  20
       7.2.6.  Varying available capacity  . . . . . . . . . . . . .  21
     7.3.  Parameter sensitivity and stability analysis  . . . . . .  22
   8.  Various Traffic Profiles  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     8.1.  Traffic mix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  22
     8.2.  Bi-directional traffic  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
   9.  Multi-AQM Scenario  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
     9.1.  Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  23
     9.2.  Details on the evaluation scenario  . . . . . . . . . . .  24
   10. Implementation cost . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
     10.1.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  24
     10.2.  Recommended discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
   11. Operator Control and Auto-tuning  . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
     11.1.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  25
     11.2.  Required discussion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
   12. Interaction with ECN  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
     12.1.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
     12.2.  Recommended discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
   13. Interaction with Scheduling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  26
     13.1.  Motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     13.2.  Recommended discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     13.3.  Assessing the interaction between AQM and scheduling . .  27
   14. Discussion on Methodology, Metrics, AQM Comparisons and
       Packet Sizes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     14.1.  Methodology  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  27
     14.2.  Comments on metrics measurement  . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
     14.3.  Comparing AQM schemes  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       14.3.1.  Performance comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  28
       14.3.2.  Deployment comparison  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  29
     14.4.  Packet sizes and congestion notification . . . . . . . .  29
   15. Conclusion  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  30
   16. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   17. Contributors  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  31
   18. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
   19. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
   20. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
     20.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
     20.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  32
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  34

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 3]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

1.  Introduction

   Active Queue Management (AQM) [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation] addresses
   the concerns arising from using unnecessarily large and unmanaged
   buffers to improve network and application performance.  Several AQM
   algorithms have been proposed in the past years, most notably Random
   Early Detection (RED), BLUE, and Proportional Integral controller
   (PI), and more recently CoDel [CODEL] and PIE [PIE].  In general,
   these algorithms actively interact with the Transmission Control
   Protocol (TCP) and any other transport protocol that deploys a
   congestion control scheme to manage the amount of data they keep in
   the network.  The available buffer space in the routers and switches
   should be large enough to accommodate the short-term buffering
   requirements.  AQM schemes aim at reducing mean buffer occupancy, and
   therefore both end-to-end delay and jitter.  Some of these
   algorithms, notably RED, have also been widely implemented in some
   network devices.  However, the potential benefits of the RED scheme
   have not been realized since RED is reported to be usually turned
   off.  The main reason of this reluctance to use RED in today's
   deployments comes from its sensitivity to the operating conditions in
   the network and the difficulty of tuning its parameters.

   A buffer is a physical volume of memory in which a queue or set of
   queues are stored.  In real implementations of switches, a global
   memory is shared between the available devices: the size of the
   buffer for a given communication does not make sense, as its
   dedicated memory may vary over the time and real-world buffering
   architectures are complex.  For the sake of simplicity, when speaking
   of a specific queue in this document, "buffer size" refers to the
   maximum amount of data the buffer may store, which can be measured in
   bytes or packets.  The rest of this memo therefore refers to the
   maximum queue depth as the size of the buffer for a given
   communication.

   Bufferbloat [BB2011] is the consequence of deploying large unmanaged
   buffers on the Internet, which has lead to an increase in end-to-end
   delay: the buffering has often been measured to be ten times or
   hundred times larger than needed.  This results in poor performance
   for latency-sensitive applications such as real-time multimedia
   (e.g., voice, video, gaming, etc).  The degree to which this affects
   modern networking equipment, especially consumer-grade equipment's,
   produces problems even with commonly used web services.  Active queue
   management is thus essential to control queuing delay and decrease
   network latency.

   The Active Queue Management and Packet Scheduling Working Group (AQM
   WG) was recently formed within the TSV area to address the problems
   with large unmanaged buffers in the Internet.  Specifically, the AQM

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 4]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   WG is tasked with standardizing AQM schemes that not only address
   concerns with such buffers, but also are robust under a wide variety
   of operating conditions.

   In order to ascertain whether the WG should undertake standardizing
   an AQM proposal, the WG requires guidelines for assessing AQM
   proposals.  This document provides the necessary characterization
   guidelines.  There may be a debate on whether a scheduling scheme is
   additional to an AQM algorithm or is a part of an AQM algorithm.  The
   rest of this memo refers to AQM as a dropping/marking policy that
   does not feature a scheduling scheme.  This document may be
   complemented with another one on guidelines for assessing combination
   of packet scheduling and AQM.  We note that such a document will
   inherit all the guidelines from this document plus any additional
   scenarios relevant for packet scheduling such as flow starvation
   evaluation or impact of the number of hash buckets.

1.1.  Reducing the latency and maximizing the goodput

   The trade-off between reducing the latency and maximizing the goodput
   is intrinsically linked to each AQM scheme and is key to evaluating
   its performance.  This trade-off MUST be considered in various
   scenarios to ensure the safety of an AQM deployment.  Whenever
   possible, solutions ought to aim at both maximizing goodput and
   minimizing latency.  This document provides guidelines that enable
   the reader to quantify (1) reduction of latency, (2) maximization of
   goodput and (3) the trade-off between the two.

   These guidelines provide the tools to understand the deployment costs
   versus the potential gain in performance from the introduction of the
   proposed scheme.

1.2.  Guidelines for AQM evaluation

   The guidelines help to quantify performance of AQM schemes in terms
   of latency reduction, goodput maximization and the trade-off between
   these two.  The guidelines also help to discuss safe deployment of
   AQM, including self-adaptation, stability analysis, fairness, design
   and implementation complexity and robustness to different operating
   conditions.

   This memo details generic characterization scenarios against which
   any AQM proposal must be evaluated, irrespective of whether or not an
   AQM is standardized by the IETF.  This documents recommends the
   relevant scenarios and metrics to be considered.

   The document presents central aspects of an AQM algorithm that must
   be considered whatever the context, such as burst absorption

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 5]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   capacity, RTT fairness or resilience to fluctuating network
   conditions.  These guidelines do not cover every possible aspect of a
   particular algorithm.  In addition, it is worth noting that the
   proposed criteria are not bound to a particular evaluation toolset.

   This document details how an AQM designer can rate the feasibility of
   their proposal in different types of network devices (switches,
   routers, firewalls, hosts, drivers, etc) where an AQM may be
   implemented.  However, these guidelines do not present context-
   dependent scenarios (such as 802.11 WLANs, data-centers or rural
   broadband networks).

1.3.  Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

1.4.  Glossary

   o  AQM: there may be a debate on whether a scheduling scheme is
      additional to an AQM algorithm or is a part of an AQM algorithm.
      The rest of this memo refers to AQM as a dropping/marking policy
      that does not feature a scheduling scheme.

   o  buffer: a physical volume of memory in which a queue or set of
      queues are stored.

   o  buffer size: the maximum amount of data that may be stored in a
      buffer, measured in bytes or packets.

2.  End-to-end metrics

   End-to-end delay is the result of propagation delay, serialization
   delay, service delay in a switch, medium-access delay and queuing
   delay, summed over the network elements along the path.  AQM schemes
   may reduce the queuing delay by providing signals to the sender on
   the emergence of congestion, but any impact on the goodput must be
   carefully considered.  This section presents the metrics that could
   be used to better quantify (1) the reduction of latency, (2)
   maximization of goodput and (3) the trade-off between these two.
   This section provides normative requirements for metrics that can be
   used to assess the performance of an AQM scheme.

   Some metrics listed in this section are not suited to every type of
   traffic detailed in the rest of this document.  It is therefore not
   necessary to measure all of the following metrics: the chosen metric
   may not be relevant to the context of the evaluation scenario (e.g.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 6]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   latency vs. goodput trade-off in application-limited traffic
   scenarios).  Guidance is provided for each metric.

2.1.  Flow completion time

   The flow completion time is an important performance metric for the
   end-user when the flow size is finite.  Considering the fact that an
   AQM scheme may drop/mark packets, the flow completion time is
   directly linked to the dropping/marking policy of the AQM scheme.
   This metric helps to better assess the performance of an AQM
   depending on the flow size.  The Flow Completion Time (FCT) is
   related to the flow size (Fs) and the goodput for the flow (G) as
   follows:

   FCT [s] = Fs [B] / ( G [Mbps] / 8 )

   If this metric is used to evaluate the performance of web transfers,
   we propose to rather consider the time needed to download all the
   objects that compose the web page, as this makes more sense in terms
   of user experience than assessing the time needed to download each
   object.

2.2.  Flow start up time

   The flow start up time is the time between the request has been sent
   from the client and the server starts to transmit data.  The amount
   of packets dropped by an AQM may seriously affect the waiting period
   during which the data transfer has not started.  This metric would
   specifically focus on the operations such as DNS lookups, TCP opens
   of SSL handshakes.

2.3.  Packet loss

   Packet loss can occur within a network device, this can impact the
   end-to-end performance measured at receiver.

   The tester SHOULD evaluate loss experienced at the receiver using one
   of the two metrics:

   o  the packet loss probability: this metric is to be frequently
      measured during the experiment.  The long-term loss probability is
      of interest for steady-state scenarios only;

   o  the interval between consecutive losses: the time between two
      losses is to be measured.

   The packet loss probability can be assessed by simply evaluating the
   loss ratio as a function of the number of lost packets and the total

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 7]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   number of packets sent.  This might not be easily done in laboratory
   testing, for which these guidelines advice the tester:

   o  to check that for every packet, a corresponding packet was
      received within a reasonable time, as explained in [RFC2680].

   o  to keep a count of all packets sent, and a count of the non-
      duplicate packets received, as explained in the section 10 of
      [RFC2544].

   The interval between consecutive losses, which is also called a gap,
   is a metric of interest for VoIP traffic and, as a result, has been
   further specified in [RFC3611].

2.4.  Packet loss synchronization

   One goal of an AQM algorithm ought be to help to avoid global
   synchronization of flows sharing a bottleneck buffer on which the AQM
   operates ([RFC2309],[I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation]).  The "degree" of
   packet-loss synchronization between flows SHOULD be assessed, with
   and without the AQM under consideration.

   As discussed e.g. in [LOSS-SYNCH-MET-08], loss synchronization among
   flows may be quantified by several slightly different metrics that
   capture different aspects of the same issue.  However, in real-world
   measurements the choice of metric could be imposed by practical
   considerations -- e.g. whether fine-grained information on packet
   losses in the bottleneck available or not.  For the purpose of AQM
   characterization, a good candidate metric is the global
   synchronization ratio, measuring the proportion of flows losing
   packets during a loss event.  [YU06] used this metric in real-world
   experiments to characterize synchronization along arbitrary Internet
   paths; the full methodology is described in [YU06].

   If an AQM scheme is evaluated using real-life network environments,
   it is worth pointing out that some network events, such as failed
   link restoration may cause synchronized losses between active flows
   and thus confuse the meaning of this metric.

2.5.  Goodput

   The goodput has been defined in the section 3.17 of [RFC2647] as the
   number of bits per unit of time forwarded to the correct destination
   interface of the Device Under Test (DUT) or the System Under Test
   (SUT), minus any bits lost or retransmitted.  This definition induces
   that the test setup needs to be qualified to assure that it is not
   generating losses on its own.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 8]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   Measuring the end-to-end goodput provides an appreciation of how well
   an AQM scheme improves transport and application performance.  The
   measured end-to-end goodput is linked to the dropping/marking policy
   of the AQM scheme -- e.g. the fewer the number of packet drops, the
   fewer packets need retransmission, minimizing the impact of AQM on
   transport and application performance.  Additionally, an AQM scheme
   may resort to Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) marking as an
   initial means to control delay.  Again, marking packets instead of
   dropping them reduces the number of packet retransmissions and
   increases goodput.  End-to-end goodput values help to evaluate the
   AQM scheme's effectiveness of an AQM scheme in minimizing packet
   drops that impact application performance and to estimate how well
   the AQM scheme works with ECN.

   The measurement of the goodput allows the tester evaluate to which
   extent an AQM is able to maintain a high bottleneck utilization.
   This metric should be also obtained frequently during an experiment
   as the long-term goodput is relevant for steady-state scenarios only
   and may not necessarily reflect how the introduction of an AQM
   actually impacts the link utilization during at a certain period of
   time.  Fluctuations in the values obtained from these measurements
   may depend on other factors than the introduction of an AQM, such as
   link layer losses due to external noise or corruption, fluctuating
   bandwidths (802.11 WLANs), heavy congestion levels or transport
   layer's rate reduction by congestion control mechanism.

2.6.  Latency and jitter

   The latency, or the one-way delay metric, is discussed in [RFC2679].
   There is a consensus on a adequate metric for the jitter, that
   represents the one-way delay variations for packets from the same
   flow: the Packet Delay Variation (PDV), detailed in [RFC5481], serves
   well all use cases.

   The end-to-end latency differs from the queuing delay: it is linked
   to the network topology and the path characteristics.  Moreover, the
   jitter also strongly depends on the traffic pattern and the topology.
   The introduction of an AQM scheme would impact these metrics and
   therefore they should be considered in the end-to-end evaluation of
   performance.

2.7.  Discussion on the trade-off between latency and goodput

   The metrics presented in this section may be considered as explained
   in the rest of this document, in order to discuss and quantify the
   trade-off between latency and goodput.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015               [Page 9]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   This trade-off can also be illustrated with figures following the
   recommendations of section 5 of [TCPEVAL2013].  Each of the end-to-
   end delay and the goodput SHOULD be measured frequently for every
   fixed time interval.

   With regards to the goodput, and in addition to the long-term
   stationary goodput value, it is RECOMMENDED to take measurements
   every multiple of RTTs.  We suggest a minimum value of 10 x RTT (to
   smooth out the fluctuations) but higher values are encouraged
   whenever appropriate for the presentation depending on the network's
   path characteristics.  The measurement period MUST be disclosed for
   each experiment and when results/values are compared across different
   AQM schemes, the comparisons SHOULD use exactly the same measurement
   periods.

   With regards to latency, it is highly RECOMMENDED to take the samples
   on per-packet basis whenever possible depending on the features
   provided by hardware/software and the impact of sampling itself on
   the hardware performance.  It is generally RECOMMENDED to provide at
   least 10 samples per RTT.

   From each of these sets of measurements, the 10th and 90th
   percentiles and the median value SHOULD be computed.  For each
   scenario, a graph can be generated, with the x-axis showing the end-
   to-end delay and the y-axis the goodput.  This graph provides part of
   a better understanding of (1) the delay/goodput trade-off for a given
   congestion control mechanism, and (2) how the goodput and average
   queue size vary as a function of the traffic load.

3.  Generic set up for evaluations

   This section presents the topology that can be used for each of the
   following scenarios, the corresponding notations and discusses
   various assumptions that have been made in the document.

3.1.  Topology and notations

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 10]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   +---------+                                        +-----------+
   |senders A|                                        |receivers B|
   +---------+                                        +-----------+

   +--------------+                                +--------------+
   |traffic class1|                                |traffic class1|
   |--------------|                                |--------------|
   | SEN.Flow1.1 +---------+            +-----------+ REC.Flow1.1 |
   |        +     |        |            |          |        +     |
   |        |     |        |            |          |        |     |
   |        +     |        |            |          |        +     |
   | SEN.Flow1.X +-----+   |            |  +--------+ REC.Flow1.X |
   +--------------+    |   |            |  |       +--------------+
        +            +-+---+---+     +--+--+---+            +
        |            |Router L |     |Router R |            |
        |            |---------|     |---------|            |
        |            | AQM     |     |         |            |
        |            | BuffSize|     |         |            |
        |            | (Bsize) +-----+         |            |
        |            +-----+--++     ++-+------+            |
        +                  |  |       | |                   +
   +--------------+        |  |       | |          +--------------+
   |traffic classN|        |  |       | |          |traffic classN|
   |--------------|        |  |       | |          |--------------|
   | SEN.FlowN.1 +---------+  |       | +-----------+ REC.FlowN.1 |
   |        +     |           |       |            |        +     |
   |        |     |           |       |            |        |     |
   |        +     |           |       |            |        +     |
   | SEN.FlowN.Y +------------+       +-------------+ REC.FlowN.Y |
   +--------------+                                +--------------+

                     Figure 1: Topology and notations

   Figure 1 is a generic topology where:

   o  various classes of traffic can be introduced;

   o  the timing of each flow could be different (i.e., when does each
      flow start and stop);

   o  each class of traffic can comprise various number of flows;

   o  each link is characterized by a couple (RTT,capacity);

   o  flows are generated between A and B, sharing a bottleneck (Routers
      L and R);

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 11]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   o  the tester SHOULD consider both scenarios of asymmetric and
      symmetric bottleneck links in terms of bandwidth.  In case of
      asymmetric link, the capacity from senders to receivers is higher
      than the one from receivers to senders; the symmetric link
      scenario provides a basic understanding of the operation of the
      AQM mechanism whereas the asymmetric link scenario evaluates an
      AQM mechanism in a more realistic setup;

   o  in asymmetric link scenarios, the tester SHOULD study the bi-
      directional traffic between A and B (downlink and uplink) with the
      AQM mechanism deployed on one direction only.  The tester MAY
      additionally consider a scenario with AQM mechanism being deployed
      on both directions.  In each scenario, the tester SHOULD
      investigate the impact of drop policy of the AQM on TCP ACK
      packets and its impact on the performance.

   Although this topology may not perfectly reflect actual topologies,
   the simple topology is commonly used in the world of simulations and
   small testbeds.  It can be considered as adequate to evaluate AQM
   proposals, similarly to the topology proposed in [TCPEVAL2013].
   Testers ought to pay attention to the topology that has been used to
   evaluate an AQM scheme when comparing this scheme with a new proposed
   AQM scheme.

3.2.  Buffer size

   The size of the buffers should be carefully chosen, and is to be set
   to the bandwidth-delay product; the bandwidth being the bottleneck
   capacity and the delay the larger RTT in the considered network.  The
   size of the buffer can impact on the AQM performance and is a
   dimensioning parameter that will be considered when comparing AQM
   proposals.

   If the context or the application requires a specific buffer size,
   the tester MUST justify and detail the way the maximum queue size is
   set.  Indeed, the maximum size of the buffer may affect the AQM's
   performance and its choice SHOULD be elaborated for a fair comparison
   between AQM proposals.  While comparing AQM schemes the buffer size
   SHOULD remain the same across the tests.

3.3.  Congestion controls

   This memo features three kind of congestion controls:

   o  Standard TCP congestion control: the base-line congestion control
      is TCP NewReno with SACK, as explained in [RFC5681].

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 12]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   o  Aggressive congestion controls: a base-line congestion control for
      this category is TCP Cubic.

   o  Less-than Best Effort (LBE) congestion controls: an LBE congestion
      control 'results in smaller bandwidth and/or delay impact on
      standard TCP than standard TCP itself, when sharing a bottleneck
      with it.'  [RFC6297]

   Other transport congestion controls can OPTIONALLY be evaluated in
   addition.  Recent transport layer protocols are not mentioned in the
   following sections, for the sake of simplicity.

4.  Transport Protocols

   Network and end-devices need to be configured with a reasonable
   amount of buffer space to absorb transient bursts.  In some
   situations, network providers tend to configure devices with large
   buffers to avoid packet drops triggered by a full buffer and to
   maximize the link utilization for standard loss-based TCP traffic.

   AQM algorithms are often evaluated by considering Transmission
   Control Protocol (TCP) [RFC0793] with a limited number of
   applications.  TCP is a widely deployed transport.  It fills up
   unmanaged buffers until the TCP sender receives a signal (packet
   drop) that reduces the sending rate.  The larger the buffer, the
   higher the buffer occupancy, and therefore the queuing delay.  An
   efficient AQM scheme sends out early congestion signals to TCP to
   bring the queuing delay under control.

   Not all applications using TCP use the same flavor of TCP.  Variety
   of senders generate different classes of traffic which may not react
   to congestion signals (aka non-responsive flows
   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation]) or may not reduce their sending rate
   as expected (aka Transport Flows that are less responsive than
   TCP[I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation], also called "aggressive flows").
   In these cases, AQM schemes seek to control the queuing delay.

   This section provides guidelines to assess the performance of an AQM
   proposal for various traffic profiles -- different types of senders
   (with different TCP congestion control variants, unresponsive,
   aggressive).

4.1.  TCP-friendly sender

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 13]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

4.1.1.  TCP-friendly sender with the same initial congestion window

   This scenario helps to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to a TCP-
   friendly transport sender.  A single long-lived, non application-
   limited, TCP NewReno flow, with an Initial congestion Window (IW) set
   to 3 packets, transfers data between sender A and receiver B.  Other
   TCP friendly congestion control schemes such as TCP-friendly rate
   control [RFC5348] etc MAY also be considered.

   For each TCP-friendly transport considered, the graph described in
   Section 2.7 could be generated.

4.1.2.  TCP-friendly sender with different initial congestion windows

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how an AQM scheme adapts to a
   traffic mix consisting of TCP flows with different values of the IW.

   For this scenario, two types of flows MUST be generated between
   sender A and receiver B:

   o  A single long-lived non application-limited TCP NewReno flow;

   o  A single long-lived application-limited TCP NewReno flow, with an
      IW set to 3 or 10 packets.  The size of the data transferred must
      be strictly higher than 10 packets and should be lower than 100
      packets.

   The transmission of the non application-limited flow must start
   before the transmission of the application-limited flow and only
   after the steady state has been reached by non application-limited
   flow.

   For each of these scenarios, the graph described in Section 2.7 could
   be generated for each class of traffic (application-limited and non
   application-limited).  The completion time of the application-limited
   TCP flow could be measured.

4.2.  Aggressive transport sender

   This scenario helps testers to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to a
   transport sender that is more aggressive than a single TCP-friendly
   sender.  We define 'aggressiveness' as a higher increase factor than
   standard upon a successful transmission and/or a lower than standard
   decrease factor upon a unsuccessful transmission (e.g. in case of
   congestion controls with Additive-Increase Multiplicative-Decrease
   (AIMD) principle, a larger AI and/or MD factors).  A single long-
   lived, non application-limited, TCP Cubic flow transfers data between

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 14]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   sender A and receiver B.  Other aggressive congestion control schemes
   MAY also be considered.

   For each flavor of aggressive transports, the graph described in
   Section 2.7 could be generated.

4.3.  Unresponsive transport sender

   This scenario helps testers to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to a
   transport sender that is less responsive than TCP.  Note that faulty
   transport implementations on an end host and/or faulty network
   elements en-route that "hide" congestion signals in packet headers
   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation] may also lead to a similar situation,
   such that the AQM scheme needs to adapt to unresponsive traffic.  To
   this end, these guidelines propose the two following scenarios.

   The first scenario can be used to evaluate queue build up.  It
   considers unresponsive flow(s) whose sending rate is greater than the
   bottleneck link capacity between routers L and R.  This scenario
   consists of a long-lived non application limited UDP flow transmits
   data between sender A and receiver B.  Graphs described in
   Section 2.7 could be generated.

   The second scenario can be used to evaluate if the AQM scheme is able
   to keep responsive fraction under control.  This scenario considers a
   mixture of TCP-friendly and unresponsive traffics.  It consists of a
   long-lived non application-limited UDP flow and a single long-lived,
   non-application-limited, TCP New Reno flow that transmit data between
   sender A and receiver B.  As opposed to the first scenario, the rate
   of the UDP traffic should not be greater than the bottleneck
   capacity, and should not be higher than half of the bottleneck
   capacity.  For each type of traffic, the graph described in
   Section 2.7 could be generated.

4.4.  Less-than Best Effort transport sender

   This scenario helps to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to LBE
   congestion controls that 'results in smaller bandwidth and/or delay
   impact on standard TCP than standard TCP itself, when sharing a
   bottleneck with it.'  [RFC6297].  The potential fateful interaction
   when AQM and LBE techniques are combined has been shown in [LBE-AQM];
   this scenario helps to evaluate whether the coexistence of the
   proposed AQM and LBE techniques may be possible.

   Single long-lived non application-limited TCP NewReno flows transfer
   data between sender A and receiver B.  Other TCP-friendly congestion
   control schemes MAY also be considered.  Single long-lived non
   application-limited LEDBAT [RFC6817] flows transfer data between

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 15]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   sender A and receiver B.  We recommend to set the target delay and
   gain values of LEDBAT respectively to 5 ms and 10 [LEDBAT-PARAM].
   Other LBE congestion control schemes, any of those listed in
   [RFC6297], MAY also be considered.

   For each of the TCP-friendly and LBE transports, the graph described
   in Section 2.7 could be generated.

5.  Round Trip Time Fairness

5.1.  Motivation

   The ability of AQM schemes to control the queuing delay highly
   depends on the way end-to-end protocols react to congestion signals.
   When the RTT varies, the behaviour of a congestion control is
   impacted and this impacts the ability of an AQM scheme to control the
   queue.  It is therefore important to assess the AQM schemes for a set
   of RTTs (e.g., from 5 ms to 200 ms).

   The asymmetry in terms of difference in intrinsic RTT between various
   paths sharing the same bottleneck SHOULD be considered so that the
   fairness between the flows can be discussed since in this scenario, a
   flow traversing on shorter RTT path may react faster to congestion
   and recover faster from it compared to another flow on a longer RTT
   path.  The introduction of AQM schemes may potentially improve this
   type of fairness.

   Introducing an AQM scheme may cause the unfairness between the flows,
   even if the RTTs are identical.  This potential unfairness SHOULD be
   investigated as well.

5.2.  Recommended tests

   The RECOMMENDED topology is detailed in Figure 1:

   o  To evaluate the inter-RTT fairness, for each run, two flows
      divided into two categories.  Category I which RTT between sender
      A and Router L SHOULD be 100ms.  Category II which RTT between
      sender A and Router L should be in [5ms;560ms].  The maximum value
      for the RTT represents the RTT of a satellite link that, according
      to the section 2 of [RFC2488] should be at least 558ms.

   o  To evaluate the impact of the RTT value on the AQM performance and
      the intra-protocol fairness (the fairness for the flows using the
      same paths/congestion control), for each run, two flows (Flow1 and
      Flow2) should be introduced.  For each experiment, the set of RTT
      SHOULD be the same for the two flows and in [5ms;560ms].

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 16]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   A set of evaluated flows MUST use the same congestion control
   algorithm.

5.3.  Metrics to evaluate the RTT fairness

   The outputs that MUST be measured are:

   o  for the inter-RTT fairness: (1) the cumulative average goodput of
      the flow from Category I, goodput_Cat_I (Section 2.5); (2) the
      cumulative average goodput of the flow from Category II,
      goodput_Cat_II (Section 2.5); (3) the ratio goodput_Cat_II/
      goodput_Cat_I; (4) the average packet drop rate for each category
      (Section 2.3).

   o  for the intra-protocol RTT fairness: (1) the cumulative average
      goodput of the two flows (Section 2.5); (2) the average packet
      drop rate for the two flows (Section 2.3).

6.  Burst Absorption

   "AQM mechanisms need to control the overall queue sizes, to ensure
   that arriving bursts can be accommodated without dropping packets"
   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation]

6.1.  Motivation

   An AQM scheme can result in bursts of packet arrivals due to various
   reasons.  Dropping one or more packets from a burst can result in
   performance penalties for the corresponding flows, since dropped
   packets have to be retransmitted.  Performance penalties can result
   in failing to meet SLAs and be a disincentive to AQM adoption.

   The ability to accommodate bursts translates to larger queue length
   and hence more queuing delay.  On the one hand, it is important that
   an AQM scheme quickly brings bursty traffic under control.  On the
   other hand, a peak in the packet drop rates to bring a packet burst
   quickly under control could result in multiple drops per flow and
   severely impact transport and application performance.  Therefore, an
   AQM scheme ought to bring bursts under control by balancing both
   aspects -- (1) queuing delay spikes are minimized and (2) performance
   penalties for ongoing flows in terms of packet drops are minimized.

   An AQM scheme that maintains short queues allows some remaining space
   in the queue for bursts of arriving packets.  The tolerance to bursts
   of packets depends upon the number of packets in the queue, which is
   directly linked to the AQM algorithm.  Moreover, one AQM scheme may
   implement a feature controlling the maximum size of accepted bursts,
   that can depend on the buffer occupancy or the currently estimated

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 17]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   queuing delay.  The impact of the buffer size on the burst allowance
   may be evaluated.

6.2.  Recommended tests

   For this scenario, tester MUST evaluate how the AQM performs with the
   following traffic generated from sender A to receiver B:

   o  Web traffic with IW10;

   o  Bursty video frames;

   o  Constant bit rate UDP traffic.

   o  A single bulk TCP flow as background traffic.

   Figure 2 presents the various cases for the traffic that MUST be
   generated between sender A and receiver B.

   +-------------------------------------------------+
   |Case| Traffic Type                               |
   |    +-----+------------+----+--------------------+
   |    |Video|Webs (IW 10)| CBR| Bulk TCP Traffic   |
   +----|-----|------------|----|--------------------|
   |I   |  0  |     1      |  1 |         0          |
   +----|-----|------------|----|--------------------|
   |II  |  0  |     1      |  1 |         1          |
   |----|-----|------------|----|--------------------|
   |III |  1  |     1      |  1 |         0          |
   +----|-----|------------|----|--------------------|
   |IV  |  1  |     1      |  1 |         1          |
   +----+-----+------------+----+--------------------+

                    Figure 2: Bursty traffic scenarios

   A new web page download could start after the previous web page
   download is finished.  Each web page could be composed by at least 50
   objects and the size of each object should be at least 1kB. 6 TCP
   parallel connections SHOULD be generated to download the objects,
   each parallel connections having an initial congestion window set to
   10 packets.

   For each of these scenarios, the graph described in Section 2.7 could
   be generated.  Metrics such as end-to-end latency, jitter, flow
   completion time MAY be generated.  For the cases of frame generation
   of bursty video traffic as well as the choice of web traffic pattern,
   we leave these details and their presentation to the testers.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 18]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

7.  Stability

7.1.  Motivation

   Network devices can experience varying operating conditions depending
   on factors such as time of the day, deployment scenario, etc.  For
   example:

   o  Traffic and congestion levels are higher during peak hours than
      off-peak hours.

   o  In the presence of a scheduler, the draining rate of a queue can
      vary depending on the occupancy of other queues: a low load on a
      high priority queue implies a higher draining rate for the lower
      priority queues.

   o  The available capacity at the physical layer can vary over time
      (e.g., a lossy channel, a link supporting traffic in a higher
      diffserv class).

   Whether the target context is a not stable environment, the ability
   of an AQM scheme to maintain its control over the queuing delay and
   buffer occupancy can be challenged.  This document proposes
   guidelines to assess the behavior of AQM schemes under varying
   congestion levels and varying draining rates.

7.2.  Recommended tests

   Note that the traffic profiles explained below comprises non
   application-limited TCP flows.  For each of the below scenarios, the
   results described in Section 2.7 SHOULD be generated.  For
   Section 7.2.5 and Section 7.2.6 they SHOULD incorporate the results
   in per-phase basis as well.

   Wherever the notion of time has explicitly mentioned in this
   subsection, time 0 starts from the moment all TCP flows have already
   reached their congestion avoidance phase.

7.2.1.  Definition of the congestion Level

   In these guidelines, the congestion levels are represented by the
   projected packet drop rate, had a drop-tail queue was chosen instead
   of an AQM scheme.  When the bottleneck is shared among non-
   application-limited TCP flows. l_r, the loss rate projection can be
   expressed as a function of N, the number of bulk TCP flows, and S,
   the sum of the bandwidth-delay product and the maximum buffer size,
   both expressed in packets, based on Eq. 3 of [SCL-TCP]:

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 19]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   l_r = 0.76 * N^2 / S^2

   N = S * sqrt(1/0.76) * sqrt (l_r)

   These guidelines use the loss rate to define the different congestion
   levels, but they do not stipulate that in other circumstances,
   measuring the congestion level gives you an accurate estimation of
   the loss rate or vice-versa.

7.2.2.  Mild congestion

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to a
   light load of incoming traffic resulting in mild congestion -- packet
   drop rates around 0.1%. The number of bulk flows required to achieve
   this congestion level, N_mild, is then:

   N_mild = round(0.036*S)

7.2.3.  Medium congestion

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to
   incoming traffic resulting in medium congestion -- packet drop rates
   around 0.5%. The number of bulk flows required to achieve this
   congestion level, N_med, is then:

   N_med = round (0.081*S)

7.2.4.  Heavy congestion

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to
   incoming traffic resulting in heavy congestion -- packet drop rates
   around 1%. The number of bulk flows required to achieve this
   congestion level, N_heavy, is then:

   N_heavy = round (0.114*S)

7.2.5.  Varying the congestion level

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to
   incoming traffic resulting in various levels of congestion during the
   experiment.  In this scenario, the congestion level varies within a
   large time-scale.  The following phases may be considered: phase I -
   mild congestion during 0-20s; phase II - medium congestion during
   20-40s; phase III - heavy congestion during 40-60s; phase I again,
   and so on.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 20]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

7.2.6.  Varying available capacity

   This scenario can be used to help characterize how the AQM behaves
   and adapts to bandwidth changes.  The experiments are not meant to
   reflect the exact conditions of Wi-Fi environments since its hard to
   design repetitive experiments or accurate simulations for such
   scenarios.

   To emulate varying draining rates, the bottleneck capacity between
   nodes 'Router L' and 'Router R' varies over the course of the
   experiment as follows:

   o  Experiment 1: the capacity varies between two values within a
      large time-scale.  As an example, the following phases may be
      considered: phase I - 100Mbps during 0-20s; phase II - 10Mbps
      during 20-40s; phase I again, and so on.

   o  Experiment 2: the capacity varies between two values within a
      short time-scale.  As an example, the following phases may be
      considered: phase I - 100Mbps during 0-100ms; phase II - 10Mbps
      during 100-200ms; phase I again, and so on.

   The tester MAY choose a phase time-interval value different than what
   is stated above, if the network's path conditions (such as bandwidth-
   delay product) necessitate.  In this case the choice of such time-
   interval value SHOULD be stated and elaborated.

   The tester MAY additionally evaluate the two mentioned scenarios
   (short-term and long-term capacity variations), during and/or
   including TCP slow-start phase.

   More realistic fluctuating capacity patterns MAY be considered.  The
   tester MAY choose to incorporate realistic scenarios with regards to
   common fluctuation of bandwidth in state-of-the-art technologies.

   The scenario MAY consist of TCP NewReno flows between sender A and
   receiver B.  To better assess the impact of draining rates on the AQM
   behavior, the tester MUST compare its performance with those of drop-
   tail and SHOULD provide a reference document for their proposal
   discussing performance and deployment compared to those of drop-tail.
   Burst traffic, such as presented in Section 6.2, could also be
   considered to assess the impact of varying available capacity on the
   burst absorption of the AQM.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 21]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

7.3.  Parameter sensitivity and stability analysis

   The control law used by an AQM is the primary means by which the
   queuing delay is controlled.  Hence understanding the control law is
   critical to understanding the behavior of the AQM scheme.  The
   control law could include several input parameters whose values
   affect the AQM scheme's output behavior and its stability.
   Additionally, AQM schemes may auto-tune parameter values in order to
   maintain stability under different network conditions (such as
   different congestion levels, draining rates or network environments).
   The stability of these auto-tuning techniques is also important to
   understand.

   Transports operating under the control of AQM experience the effect
   of multiple control loops that react over different timescales.  It
   is therefore important that proposed AQM schemes are seen to be
   stable when they are deployed at multiple points of potential
   congestion along an Internet path.  The pattern of congestion signals
   (loss or ECN-marking) arising from AQM methods also need to not
   adversely interact with the dynamics of the transport protocols that
   they control.

   AQM proposals SHOULD provide background material showing control
   theoretic analysis of the AQM control law and the input parameter
   space within which the control law operates as expected; or could use
   another way to discuss the stability of the control law.  For
   parameters that are auto-tuned, the material SHOULD include stability
   analysis of the auto-tuning mechanism(s) as well.  Such analysis
   helps to understand an AQM control law better and the network
   conditions/deployments under which the AQM is stable.

8.  Various Traffic Profiles

   This section provides guidelines to assess the performance of an AQM
   proposal for various traffic profiles such as traffic with different
   applications or bi-directional traffic.

8.1.  Traffic mix

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how an AQM scheme reacts to a
   traffic mix consisting of different applications such as:

   o  Bulk TCP transfer

   o  Web traffic

   o  VoIP

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 22]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   o  Constant Bit Rate (CBR) UDP traffic

   o  Adaptive video streaming

   Various traffic mixes can be considered.  These guidelines RECOMMEND
   to examine at least the following example: 1 bi-directional VoIP; 6
   Webs pages download (such as detailed in Section 6.2); 1 CBR; 1
   Adaptive Video; 5 bulk TCP.  Any other combinations could be
   considered and should be carefully documented.

   For each scenario, the graph described in Section 2.7 could be
   generated for each class of traffic.  Metrics such as end-to-end
   latency, jitter and flow completion time MAY be reported.

8.2.  Bi-directional traffic

   Control packets such as DNS requests/responses, TCP SYNs/ACKs are
   small, but their loss can severely impact the application
   performance.  The scenario proposed in this section will help in
   assessing whether the introduction of an AQM scheme increases the
   loss probability of these important packets.

   For this scenario, traffic MUST be generated in both downlink and
   uplink, such as defined in Section 3.1.  These guidelines RECOMMEND
   to consider a mild congestion level and the traffic presented in
   Section 7.2.2 in both directions.  In this case, the metrics reported
   MUST be the same as in Section 7.2 for each direction.

   The traffic mix presented in Section 8.1 MAY also be generated in
   both directions.

9.  Multi-AQM Scenario

9.1.  Motivation

   Transports operating under the control of AQM experience the effect
   of multiple control loops that react over different timescales.  It
   is therefore important that proposed AQM schemes are seen to be
   stable when they are deployed at multiple points of potential
   congestion along an Internet path.  The pattern of congestion signals
   (loss or ECN-marking) arising from AQM methods also need to not
   adversely interact with the dynamics of the transport protocols that
   they control.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 23]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

9.2.  Details on the evaluation scenario

   +---------+                              +-----------+
   |senders A|---+                      +---|receivers A|
   +---------+   |                      |   +-----------+
           +-----+---+  +---------+  +--+-----+
           |Router L |--|Router M |--|Router R|
           |AQM      |  |AQM      |  |No AQM  |
           +---------+  +--+------+  +--+-----+
   +---------+             |            |   +-----------+
   |senders B|-------------+            +---|receivers B|
   +---------+                              +-----------+

               Figure 3: Topology for the Multi-AQM scenario

   This scenario can be used to evaluate how having AQM schemes in
   sequence impact the induced latency reduction, the induced goodput
   maximization and the trade-off between these two.  The topology
   presented in Figure 3 could be used.  We recommend that the AQM
   schemes introduced in Router L and Router M should be the same; any
   other configurations could be considered.  For this scenario, we
   recommend to consider a mild congestion level, the number of flows
   specified in Section 7.2.2 being equally shared among senders A and
   B.  Any other relevant combination of congestion levels could be
   considered.  We recommend to measure the metrics presented in
   Section 7.2.

10.  Implementation cost

10.1.  Motivation

   Successful deployment of AQM is directly related to its cost of
   implementation.  Network devices can need hardware or software
   implementations of the AQM mechanism.  Depending on a device's
   capabilities and limitations, the device may or may not be able to
   implement some or all parts of the AQM logic.

   AQM proposals SHOULD provide pseudo-code for the complete AQM scheme,
   highlighting generic implementation-specific aspects of the scheme
   such as "drop-tail" vs. "drop-head", inputs (e.g. current queuing
   delay, queue length), computations involved, need for timers, etc.
   This helps to identify costs associated with implementing the AQM
   scheme on a particular hardware or software device.  This also helps
   the WG understand which kind of devices can easily support the AQM
   and which cannot.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 24]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

10.2.  Recommended discussion

   AQM proposals SHOULD highlight parts of AQM logic that are device
   dependent and discuss if and how AQM behavior could be impacted by
   the device.  For example, a queueing-delay based AQM scheme requires
   current queuing delay as input from the device.  If the device
   already maintains this value, then it can be trivial to implement the
   AQM logic on the device.  If the device provides indirect means to
   estimate the queuing delay (for example: timestamps, dequeuing rate),
   then the AQM behavior is sensitive to the precision of the queuing
   delay estimations are for that device.  Highlighting the sensitivity
   of an AQM scheme to queuing delay estimations helps implementers to
   identify appropriate means of implementing the mechanism on a device.

11.  Operator Control and Auto-tuning

11.1.  Motivation

   One of the biggest hurdles of RED deployment was/is its parameter
   sensitivity to operating conditions -- how difficult it is to tune
   RED parameters for a deployment to achieve acceptable benefit from
   using RED.  Fluctuating congestion levels and network conditions add
   to the complexity.  Incorrect parameter values lead to poor
   performance.

   Any AQM scheme is likely to have parameters whose values affect the
   control law and behaviour of an AQM.  Exposing all these parameters
   as control parameters to a network operator (or user) can easily
   result in a unsafe AQM deployment.  Unexpected AQM behavior ensues
   when parameter values are set improperly.  A minimal number of
   control parameters minimizes the number of ways a possibly naive user
   can break a system where an AQM scheme is deployed at.  Fewer control
   parameters make the AQM scheme more user-friendly and easier to
   deploy and debug.

   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation] states "AQM algorithms SHOULD NOT
   require tuning of initial or configuration parameters in common use
   cases."  A scheme ought to expose only those parameters that control
   the macroscopic AQM behavior such as queue delay threshold, queue
   length threshold, etc.

   Additionally, the safety of an AQM scheme is directly related to its
   stability under varying operating conditions such as varying traffic
   profiles and fluctuating network conditions, as described in
   Section 7.  Operating conditions vary often and hence the AQM needs
   to remain stable under these conditions without the need for
   additional external tuning.  If AQM parameters require tuning under

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 25]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   these conditions, then the AQM must self-adapt necessary parameter
   values by employing auto-tuning techniques.

11.2.  Required discussion

   AQM proposals SHOULD describe the parameters that control the
   macroscopic AQM behavior, and identify any parameters that require
   require tuning to operational conditions.  It could be interesting to
   also discuss that even if an AQM scheme may not adequately auto-tune
   its parameters, the resulting performance may not be optimal, but
   close to something reasonable.

   If there are any fixed parameters within the AQM, their setting
   SHOULD be discussed and justified.

   If an AQM scheme is evaluated with parameter(s) that were externally
   tuned for optimization or other purposes, these values MUST be
   disclosed.

12.  Interaction with ECN

   Deployed AQM algorithms SHOULD support Explicit Congestion
   Notification (ECN) as well as loss to signal congestion to
   endpoints"[I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation].  The benefits of providing
   ECN support for an AQM scheme are described in [ECN-Benefit].

12.1.  Motivation

   (ECN) [RFC3168] is an alternative that allows AQM schemes to signal
   receivers about network congestion that does not use packet drop.

12.2.  Recommended discussion

   An AQM scheme can support ECN [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation], in which
   case testers MUST discuss and describe the support of ECN.

13.  Interaction with Scheduling

   A network device may use per-flow or per-class queuing with a
   scheduling algorithm to either prioritize certain applications or
   classes of traffic, limit the rate of transmission, or to provide
   isolation between different traffic flows within a common class
   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation].

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 26]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

13.1.  Motivation

   Coupled with an AQM scheme, a router may schedule the transmission of
   packets in a specific manner by introducing a scheduling scheme.
   This algorithm may create sub-queues and integrate a dropping policy
   on each of these sub-queues.  Another scheduling policy may modify
   the way packets are sequenced, modifying the timestamp of each
   packet.

13.2.  Recommended discussion

   The scheduling and the AQM conjointly impact on the end-to-end
   performance.  During the characterization process of a dropping
   policy, the tester MUST discuss the feasibility to add scheduling
   combined with the AQM algorithm.  This discussion as an instance, MAY
   explain whether the dropping policy is applied when packets are being
   enqueued or dequeued.

13.3.  Assessing the interaction between AQM and scheduling

   These guidelines do not propose guidelines to assess the performance
   of scheduling algorithms.  Indeed, as opposed to characterizing AQM
   schemes that is related to their capacity to control the queuing
   delay in a queue, characterizing scheduling schemes is related to the
   scheduling itself and its interaction with the AQM scheme.  As one
   example, the scheduler may create sub-queues and the AQM scheme may
   be applied on each of the sub-queues, and/or the AQM could be applied
   on the whole queue.  Also, schedulers might, such as FQ-CoDel
   [FQ-CoDel] or FavorQueue [FAVOUR], introduce flow prioritization.  In
   these cases, specific scenarios should be proposed to ascertain that
   these scheduler schemes not only helps in tackling the bufferbloat,
   but also are robust under a wide variety of operating conditions.
   This is out of the scope of this document that focus on dropping and/
   or marking AQM schemes.

14.  Discussion on Methodology, Metrics, AQM Comparisons and Packet
     Sizes

14.1.  Methodology

   One key objective behind formulating the guidelines is to help
   ascertain whether a specific AQM is not only better than drop-tail
   but also safe to deploy.  Testers therefore need to provide a
   reference document for their proposal discussing performance and
   deployment compared to those of drop-tail.

   A description of each test setup SHOULD be detailed to allow this
   test to be compared with other tests.  This also allows others to

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 27]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   replicate the tests if needed.  This test setup SHOULD detail
   software and hardware versions.  The tester could make its data
   available.

   The proposals SHOULD be evaluated on real-life systems, or they MAY
   be evaluated with event-driven simulations (such as ns-2, ns-3,
   OMNET, etc).  The proposed scenarios are not bound to a particular
   evaluation toolset.

   The tester is encouraged to make the detailed test setup and the
   results publicly available.

14.2.  Comments on metrics measurement

   The document presents the end-to-end metrics that ought to be used to
   evaluate the trade-off between latency and goodput in Section 2.  In
   addition to the end-to-end metrics, the queue-level metrics (normally
   collected at the device operating the AQM) provide a better
   understanding of the AQM behavior under study and the impact of its
   internal parameters.  Whenever it is possible (e.g. depending on the
   features provided by the hardware/software), these guidelines advice
   to consider queue-level metrics, such as link utilization, queuing
   delay, queue size or packet drop/mark statistics in addition to the
   AQM-specific parameters.  However, the evaluation MUST be primarily
   based on externally observed end-to-end metrics.

   These guidelines do not aim to detail on the way these metrics can be
   measured, since the way these metrics are measured is expected to
   depend on the evaluation toolset.

14.3.  Comparing AQM schemes

   This document recognizes that the guidelines mentioned above may be
   used for comparing AQM schemes.

   AQM schemes need to be compared against both performance and
   deployment categories.  In addition, this section details how best to
   achieve a fair comparison of AQM schemes by avoiding certain
   pitfalls.

14.3.1.  Performance comparison

   AQM schemes MUST be compared against all the generic scenarios
   presented in this memo.  AQM schemes MAY be compared for specific
   network environments such as data centers, home networks, etc.  If an
   AQM scheme has parameter(s) that were externally tuned for
   optimization or other purposes, these values MUST be disclosed.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 28]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   AQM schemes belong to different varieties such as queue-length based
   schemes (ex.  RED) or queueing-delay based scheme (ex.  CoDel, PIE).
   AQM schemes expose different control knobs associated with different
   semantics.  For example, while both PIE and CoDel are queueing-delay
   based schemes and each expose a knob to control the queueing delay --
   PIE's "queueing delay reference" vs. CoDel's "queueing delay target",
   the two tuning parameters of the two schemes have different
   semantics, resulting in different control points.  Such differences
   in AQM schemes can be easily overlooked while making comparisons.

   This document RECOMMENDS the following procedures for a fair
   performance comparison between the AQM schemes:

   1.  comparable control parameters and comparable input values:
       carefully identify the set of parameters that control similar
       behavior between the two AQM schemes and ensure these parameters
       have comparable input values.  For example, to compare how well a
       queue-length based AQM scheme controls queueing delay vs. a
       queueing-delay based AQM scheme, a tester can identify the
       parameters of the schemes that control queue delay and ensure
       that their input values are comparable.  Similarly, to compare
       how well two AQM schemes accommodate packet bursts, the tester
       can identify burst-related control parameters and ensure they are
       configured with similar values.

   2.  compare over a range of input configurations: there could be
       situations when the set of control parameters that affect a
       specific behavior have different semantics between the two AQM
       schemes.  As mentioned above, PIE has tuning parameters to
       control queue delay that has a different semantics from those
       used in CoDel.  In such situations, these schemes need to be
       compared over a range of input configurations.  For example,
       compare PIE vs. CoDel over the range of target delay input
       configurations.

14.3.2.  Deployment comparison

   AQM schemes MUST be compared against deployment criteria such as the
   parameter sensitivity (Section 7.3), auto-tuning (Section 11) or
   implementation cost (Section 10).

14.4.  Packet sizes and congestion notification

   An AQM scheme may be considering packet sizes while generating
   congestion signals.  [RFC7141] discusses the motivations behind this.
   For example, control packets such as DNS requests/responses, TCP
   SYNs/ACKs are small, but their loss can severely impact the
   application performance.  An AQM scheme may therefore be biased

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 29]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   towards small packets by dropping them with smaller probability
   compared to larger packets.  However, such an AQM scheme is unfair to
   data senders generating larger packets.  Data senders, malicious or
   otherwise, are motivated to take advantage of such AQM scheme by
   transmitting smaller packets, and could result in unsafe deployments
   and unhealthy transport and/or application designs.

   An AQM scheme SHOULD adhere to the recommendations outlined in
   [RFC7141], and SHOULD NOT provide undue advantage to flows with
   smaller packets [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation].

15.  Conclusion

   Figure 4 lists the scenarios and their requirements.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 30]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Scenario                   |Sec.  |Requirement                    |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Transport Protocols        |4.    |                               |
   | TCP-friendly sender       | 4.1  |Scenario MUST be considered    |
   | Aggressive sender         | 4.2  |Scenario MUST be considered    |
   | Unresponsive sender       | 4.3  |Scenario MUST be considered    |
   | LBE sender                | 4.4  |Scenario MAY be considered     |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Round Trip Time Fairness   | 5.2  |Scenario MUST be considered    |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Burst Absorption           | 6.2  |Scenario MUST be considered    |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Stability                  |7.    |                               |
   | Varying congestion levels | 7.2.5|Scenario MUST be considered    |
   | Varying available capacity| 7.2.6|Scenario MUST be considered    |
   | Parameters and stability  | 7.3  |This SHOULD be discussed       |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Various Traffic Profiles   |8.    |                               |
   | Traffic mix               | 8.1  |Scenario is RECOMMENDED        |
   | Bi-directional traffic    | 8.2  |Scenario MAY be considered     |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Multi-AQM                  | 9.2  |Scenario MAY be considered     |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Implementation Cost        | 10.2 |Pseudo-code SHOULD be provided |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Operator Control           | 11.2 |Tuning SHOULD NOT be required  |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Interaction with ECN       | 12.2 |MUST be discussed if supported |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+
   |Interaction with Scheduling| 13.2 |Feasibility MUST be discussed  |
   +------------------------------------------------------------------+

         Figure 4: Summary of the scenarios and their requirements

16.  Acknowledgements

   This work has been partially supported by the European Community
   under its Seventh Framework Programme through the Reducing Internet
   Transport Latency (RITE) project (ICT-317700).

17.  Contributors

   Many thanks to S.  Akhtar, A.B.  Bagayoko, F.  Baker, D.  Collier-
   Brown, G.  Fairhurst, J.  Gettys, T.  Hoiland-Jorgensen, C.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 31]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   Kulatunga, W.  Lautenschlager, A.C.  Morton, R.  Pan, D.  Taht and M.
   Welzl for detailed and wise feedback on this document.

18.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no request to IANA.

19.  Security Considerations

   Some security considerations for AQM are identified in
   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation].This document, by itself, presents no
   new privacy nor security issues.

20.  References

20.1.  Normative References

   [I-D.ietf-aqm-recommendation]
              Baker, F. and G. Fairhurst, "IETF Recommendations
              Regarding Active Queue Management", draft-ietf-aqm-
              recommendation-11 (work in progress), February 2015.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", RFC 2119, 1997.

   [RFC7141]  Briscoe, B. and J. Manner, "Byte and Packet Congestion
              Notification", RFC 7141, 2014.

20.2.  Informative References

   [BB2011]   "BufferBloat: what's wrong with the internet?", ACM Queue
              vol. 9, 2011.

   [CODEL]    Nichols, K. and V. Jacobson, "Controlling Queue Delay",
              ACM Queue , 2012.

   [ECN-Benefit]
              Welzl, M. and G. Fairhurst, "The Benefits to Applications
              of using Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN)", IETF
              (Work-in-Progress) , February 2014.

   [FAVOUR]   Anelli, P., Diana, R., and E. Lochin, "FavorQueue: a
              Parameterless Active Queue Management to Improve TCP
              Traffic Performance", Computer Networks vol. 60, 2014.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 32]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   [FQ-CoDel]
              Hoeiland-Joergensen, T., McKenney, P., Taht, D., Gettys,
              J., and E. Dumazet, "FlowQueue-Codel", IETF (Work-in-
              Progress) , January 2015.

   [LBE-AQM]  Gong, Y., Rossi, D., Testa, C., Valenti, S., and D. Taht,
              "Fighting the bufferbloat: on the coexistence of AQM and
              low priority congestion control", Computer Networks,
              Elsevier, 2014, 60, pp.115 - 128 , 2014.

   [LEDBAT-PARAM]
              Trang, S., Kuhn, N., Lochin, E., Baudoin, C., Dubois, E.,
              and P. Gelard, "On The Existence Of Optimal LEDBAT
              Parameters", IEEE ICC 2014 - Communication QoS,
              Reliability and Modeling Symposium , 2014.

   [LOSS-SYNCH-MET-08]
              Hassayoun, S. and D. Ros, "Loss Synchronization and Router
              Buffer Sizing with High-Speed Versions of TCP", IEEE
              INFOCOM Workshops , 2008.

   [PIE]      Pan, R., Natarajan, P., Piglione, C., Prabhu, MS.,
              Subramanian, V., Baker, F., and B. VerSteeg, "PIE: A
              lightweight control scheme to address the bufferbloat
              problem", IEEE HPSR , 2013.

   [RFC0793]  Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7, RFC
              793, September 1981.

   [RFC2309]  Braden, B., Clark, D., Crowcroft, J., Davie, B., Deering,
              S., Estrin, D., Floyd, S., Jacobson, V., Minshall, G.,
              Partridge, C., Peterson, L., Ramakrishnan, K., Shenker,
              S., Wroclawski, J., and L. Zhang, "Recommendations on
              Queue Management and Congestion Avoidance in the
              Internet", RFC 2309, April 1998.

   [RFC2488]  Allman, M., Glover, D., and L. Sanchez, "Enhancing TCP
              Over Satellite Channels using Standard Mechanisms", BCP
              28, RFC 2488, January 1999.

   [RFC2544]  Bradner, S. and J. McQuaid, "Benchmarking Methodology for
              Network Interconnect Devices", RFC 2544, March 1999.

   [RFC2647]  Newman, D., "Benchmarking Terminology for Firewall
              Performance", RFC 2647, August 1999.

   [RFC2679]  Almes, G., Kalidindi, S., and M. Zekauskas, "A One-way
              Delay Metric for IPPM", RFC 2679, September 1999.

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 33]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   [RFC2680]  Almes, G., Kalidindi, S., and M. Zekauskas, "A One-way
              Packet Loss Metric for IPPM", RFC 2680, September 1999.

   [RFC3168]  Ramakrishnan, K., Floyd, S., and D. Black, "The Addition
              of Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) to IP", RFC
              3168, September 2001.

   [RFC3611]  Friedman, T., Caceres, R., and A. Clark, "RTP Control
              Protocol Extended Reports (RTCP XR)", RFC 3611, November
              2003.

   [RFC5348]  Floyd, S., Handley, M., Padhye, J., and J. Widmer, "TCP
              Friendly Rate Control (TFRC): Protocol Specification", RFC
              5348, September 2008.

   [RFC5481]  Morton, A. and B. Claise, "Packet Delay Variation
              Applicability Statement", RFC 5481, March 2009.

   [RFC5681]  Allman, M., Paxson, V., and E. Blanton, "TCP Congestion
              Control", RFC 5681, September 2009.

   [RFC6297]  Welzl, M. and D. Ros, "A Survey of Lower-than-Best-Effort
              Transport Protocols", RFC 6297, June 2011.

   [RFC6817]  Shalunov, S., Hazel, G., Iyengar, J., and M. Kuehlewind,
              "Low Extra Delay Background Transport (LEDBAT)", RFC 6817,
              December 2012.

   [SCL-TCP]  Morris, R., "Scalable TCP congestion control", IEEE
              INFOCOM , 2000.

   [TCPEVAL2013]
              Hayes, D., Ros, D., Andrew, L., and S. Floyd, "Common TCP
              Evaluation Suite", IRTF ICCRG , 2013.

   [YU06]     Jay, P., Fu, Q., and G. Armitage, "A preliminary analysis
              of loss synchronisation between concurrent TCP flows",
              Australian Telecommunication Networks and Application
              Conference (ATNAC) , 2006.

Authors' Addresses

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 34]
Internet-Draft       AQM Characterization Guidelines           June 2015

   Nicolas Kuhn (editor)
   Telecom Bretagne
   2 rue de la Chataigneraie
   Cesson-Sevigne  35510
   France

   Phone: +33 2 99 12 70 46
   Email: nicolas.kuhn@telecom-bretagne.eu

   Preethi Natarajan (editor)
   Cisco Systems
   510 McCarthy Blvd
   Milpitas, California
   United States

   Email: prenatar@cisco.com

   Naeem Khademi (editor)
   University of Oslo
   Department of Informatics, PO Box 1080 Blindern
   N-0316 Oslo
   Norway

   Phone: +47 2285 24 93
   Email: naeemk@ifi.uio.no

   David Ros
   Simula Research Laboratory AS
   P.O. Box 134
   Lysaker, 1325
   Norway

   Phone: +33 299 25 21 21
   Email: dros@simula.no

Kuhn, et al.            Expires December 31, 2015              [Page 35]