Flow-aware resilient ring: new proposal for metropolitan area networks

Abstract

The Flow-Aware Resilient Ring (FARR) as a new proposal for Metropolitan Area Networks is presented and analyzed in this paper. This new solution combines the best features of two known network architectures: Flow-Aware Networking and Resilient Packet Ring. Traffic in FARR networks is served as flows and implicitly classified into one of two classes: streaming (with high priority) or elastic (without priority but with assured bandwidth). This allows for providing Quality of Service guarantees in accordance with network neutrality rules. Moreover, high priority traffic is protected in case of a network element failure by the steering mechanism, which ensures fast traffic redirection in time less than 50 ms. The advantages and weaknesses of the proposed architecture are presented along with an analysis of traffic distribution in different topologies. The formulae provided in the paper allow a decision to be made on whether it is profitable to reconfigure a single-ring into a multi-ring topology. Moreover, it is shown that simultaneous implementation of FARR networks with congestion control mechanisms ensures fast, scalable and reliable transmission of streaming flows.