Optimal resource pooling over legacy equal-split load balancing schemes. Németh, K., Körösi, A., & Rétvári, G. Computer Networks, 127:243-265, 2017.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Abstract Splitting traffic flows to different data paths is crucial in current and future networks. Traffic division serves as the basis for load balancing between application servers, optimal Traffic Engineering, using multiple paths in data centers, and several other places of an end-to-end connection. Unfortunately, by allowing only equal division amongst the parallel resources, existing technologies often cannot realize the optimal traffic splitting, which can have serious negative consequences on the network performance. In this paper we present a flexible and effective traffic splitting method that is incrementally deployable and fully compatible with practically all existing protocols and data planes. Our proposal, called Virtual Resource Allocation (VRA), is based on setting up virtual resources alongside existing ones, thereby tricking the legacy equal traffic splitting technology into realizing the required non-equal traffic division over the physical media. We propose several \VRA\ schemes, give theoretical bounds on their performance, and also show that the full-fledged \VRA\ problem is NP-complete in general. Accordingly, we provide solution algorithms, including an optimal, but necessarily slow method and several quick heuristics. Our simulations show that \VRA\ has huge practical potential as it allows approaching an ideal traffic split using only a very limited set of virtual resources. Based on the results, we also give detailed suggestions on which algorithm to apply in different scenarios.
@article{comnets_2017,
author = {K. N{\'{e}}meth and A. K{\"{o}}r{\"{o}}si and G. R{\'{e}}tv{\'{a}}ri},
title = "Optimal resource pooling over legacy equal-split load balancing schemes",
journal = "Computer Networks",
volume = "127",
number = "",
pages = "243-265",
year = "2017",
doi = "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2017.08.017",
keywords = "Resource pooling",
keywords = "Load balancing",
keywords = "Traffic splitting",
keywords = "Non-equal splitting",
keywords = "ECMP",
abstract = "Abstract Splitting traffic flows to different data paths is crucial in current and future networks. Traffic division serves as the basis for load balancing between application servers, optimal Traffic Engineering, using multiple paths in data centers, and several other places of an end-to-end connection. Unfortunately, by allowing only equal division amongst the parallel resources, existing technologies often cannot realize the optimal traffic splitting, which can have serious negative consequences on the network performance. In this paper we present a flexible and effective traffic splitting method that is incrementally deployable and fully compatible with practically all existing protocols and data planes. Our proposal, called Virtual Resource Allocation (VRA), is based on setting up virtual resources alongside existing ones, thereby tricking the legacy equal traffic splitting technology into realizing the required non-equal traffic division over the physical media. We propose several \{VRA\} schemes, give theoretical bounds on their performance, and also show that the full-fledged \{VRA\} problem is NP-complete in general. Accordingly, we provide solution algorithms, including an optimal, but necessarily slow method and several quick heuristics. Our simulations show that \{VRA\} has huge practical potential as it allows approaching an ideal traffic split using only a very limited set of virtual resources. Based on the results, we also give detailed suggestions on which algorithm to apply in different scenarios.",
  paper = {http://lendulet.tmit.bme.hu/~retvari/publications/comnets_2017.pdf},
}

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