Quality of service in networks with prioritised traffic involving the multi-priority dual queue

Abstract

The Multi Priority Dual Queue (MPDQ) is a new scheduling regime shown to reduce congestion for multi-class traffic over conventional scheduling disciplines in isolation. As the MPDQ improves traffic congestion, most notably in communication systems, it is not necessary to include it at every node, or service centre, within a network. To gain insight into the advantages of a mixed MPDQ / First In First Out network with prioritised traffic, simulations are performed with and without a dual queue and various Quality of Service (QoS) criteria are obtained. Queueing networks containing differentiated traffic, also known as multi-class networks, are complicated to solve analytically using existing queueing theory techniques. We discuss the complications of exact solutions and describe how we used simulation to obtain performance statistics. We also look at high-class traffic under different offered loads, and provide a comparison of the delay characteristics. These findings provide communication service providers valuable information in determining the improvement in QoS to differentiated networks with the MPDQ. They also highlight the importance of simulation as a tool of evaluation of networks, and the best MPDQ network scenario.