Approximate Flow-Aware Networking

A new variation of the Flow-Aware Networking (FAN) concept is presented in the paper. The proposed solution is based on the Approximate Fair Dropping algorithm and called by us Approximate Flow-Aware Networking (AFAN). The simplicity of the new proposal is assured as a result of using only two FIFO queues for the scheduled packets. The impact of congestion control mechanisms proposed for Flow-Aware Networks on packet transmission in the overloaded network for the AFAN is also presented. The analysis shows how to choose the values of the parameters which decide of proper transmission characteristics of the network. The results of the research are compared with those obtained for the other two FAN architectures, with the PFQ (Priority Fair Queuing) and with the PDRR (Priority Deficit Round Robin) scheduling algorithms. The advantages and weaknesses of the new proposal are described and analyzed.