Improving Internet Performance through Traffic Managers

Ibrahim Matta, Ph.D.
Boston University

March 7, 2003
11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Fuller Labs 320

Abstract

To tame the unpredictability of today's Internet, I present an architecture of "Traffic Managers" (TMs)--special network elements strategically placed in the Internet. This talk reviews some basic control capabilities that these TMs should employ to ensure desirable properties (e.g., satisfaction of delay requirements, improved stability and efficiency). These control capabilities include differentiated control of flows with divergent characteristics, and control of bandwidth and losses seen by flows. The focus of this talk is on the control of TCP flows as they constitute the majority of the traffic volume on the Internet today. Based on control-theoretic principles, I illustrate the utility of such traffic controls applied through TMs. This is joint work with Azer Bestavros, Liang Guo, and Mina Guirguis.

Biography

Ibrahim Matta received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1995. He is currently an assistant professor at the Computer Science Department of Boston University. He leads the QoS Networking Laboratory and is a member of the Web and InterNetworking Group (WING). His research involves the design and analysis of QoS and wireless architectures and protocols. His recent projects investigate QoS and Internet routing, Internet topology and traffic analysis, and Internet traffic controllers. He received the National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 1997.

He served as Guest Co-editor of two special issues on Reliable Transport Protocols for Mobile Computing in the "Journal of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing"' February 2002, and on Quality of Service Routing in the "IEEE Communications Magazine", June 2002. H e served as Technical Program Co-chair of the International Workshop on Wired/Wireless Internet Communications (WWIC 2002). He is Publication Chair of IEEE INFOCOM 2003, and was Tutorial and Panel Chair of the 9th Hot Interconnects Symposium 2001. He is currently Area Editor of the Computer Networks (COMNET) Journal and on the Advisory Council of the IEEE International Symposium on Computers and Communications.

Host

Prof. Mark Claypool

Refreshments will be served in FL 320 beginning at 10:50 a.m.

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