One document matched: draft-lee-hmp-00.txt


Internet Engineering Task Force                         Seoung-Bum Lee
INTERNET-DRAFT                                             Jiyoung Cho
draft-lee-hmp-00.txt                                Andrew T. Campbell
Expires: March 2004                                Columbia University
                                                          October 2003


           		Hotspot Mitigation Protocol (HMP)


Status of this Memo
 
   	This document is an Internet-Draft and is subject to all provisions
	of Section 10 of RFC2026.
             
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   Distribution of this memo is unlimited.


Abstract

	This draft specifies a Hotspot Mitigation Protocol (HMP) for 
	mobile ad hoc networks that use on-demand routing protocols and 
	the IEEE 802.11 MAC. Hotspots represent transient but highly 
 	congested regions in wireless ad hoc networks that result in 
 	increased packet loss, end-to-end delay, and out-of-order 
	packets delivery. Using HMP, mobile nodes independently monitor 
	local conditions (e.g., buffer occupancy, packet loss, and MAC 
	contention and delay) in a fully distributed manner, and take 
	local actions in response to the emergence of hotspots, such as, 	
        suppressing new route requests and rate controlling TCP flows. 
	As a result, HMP improves end-to-end throughput, delay, and 
	packet loss, balances the resource consumption among neighboring 
	nodes, and finally, improves the network connectivity by 
	preventing premature network partitions.


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Table of Contents

	1.   Introduction .............................................. 2
	2.   Hotspots .................................................. 3
	2.1  Existence of Hotspots ..................................... 4
	2.2  Hotspot Detection ......................................... 4
	2.2.1	MAC-delay violation .................................... 5
	2.2.3	Packet Loss ............................................ 6
	2.2.3   Buffer Occupancy ....................................... 6
	2.3  Hotspot Region ............................................ 6
	3.   Hotspot Mitigation Protocol ............................... 6
	3.1  HMP Operation ............................................. 8
    	3.2  Congestion Levels ......................................... 9
	3.3  Energy-awareness .......................................... 9
	3.4  Protocol Sensitivity ..................................... 10
	4.   Acknowledgement .......................................... 10
	5.   Reference ................................................ 11
	6.   Author's Addresses ....................................... 11
		


1. Introduction

	Hotspots are often created in regions of mobile ad hoc networks
	(MANETs) where flows converge and intersect with each other.
	Hotspots are defined as nodes that experience flash congestion
	conditions or excessive contention over longer time-scales (e.g.,
	order of seconds). Under such conditions nodes typically consume
	more resources (e.g., energy) and attempt to receive, process, and
	forward packets but the performance of the packet forwarding and
	signaling functions is considerably diminished and limited during
	hotspot periods. This is the result of excessive contention of the
	shared media wireless access, and due to flash loading at hotspot
	nodes, and importantly, at neighboring nodes that are in the region
	of hotspots. Hotspots are often transient in nature because the
	mobility of nodes in the network continuously creates, removes, and
	to some degree, migrates hotspots because node mobility changes the
	network topology and causes flows to be rerouted. Hotspots are
	characterized by excessive contention, congestion, and resource
	exhaustion in these networks. In other words, hotspots appear when
	excessive contention exists, prompting congestion when insufficient
	resources are available to handle the increased traffic load.

	Hotspots are intrinsic to many on-demand MANET routing protocols
	because most on-demand routing protocols [1][2][3] utilize shortest
	path (or hop count) as their primary route creation metric. Most


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	on-demand routing protocols allow an intermediate node to reply to a
	route query using cached route information, causing traffic to
	concentrate at certain nodes. Although many on-demand routing 
        protocols prove to be effective in routing packets in these 
        networks they also have a propensity to create hotspots, where these
	hotspots consume a disproportionate amount of resources (e.g., energy) 
	[7]. Other researchers have made similar observations [4][5][6]. 

	Ideally, establishing routes through non-congested 
	areas of the network and rerouting active flows away
	from congested areas to non- congested areas would be the best
	approach to hotspot mitigation. However, this requires extensive
	collaboration between nodes to establish load-aware routes and
	sophisticated algorithms to update time-varying loading conditions.
	Such an approach is unscalable and not practical in mobile ad hoc
	networks.

	This draft specifies a Hotspot Mitigation Protocol (HMP) for 
	mobile ad hoc networks that use on-demand routing protocols and 
	the IEEE 802.11 MAC. Hotspots represent transient but highly 
 	congested regions in wireless ad hoc networks that result in 
 	increased packet loss, end-to-end delay, and out-of-order 
	packets delivery. Using HMP, mobile nodes independently monitor 
	local conditions, and take local actions in response to the 
	emergence of hotspots. As a result, HMP improves end-to-end 
	throughput, delay, and packet loss, balances the resource 
	consumption among neighboring nodes, and finally, improves the 
	network connectivity by preventing premature network partitions. 
	HMP represents a fully distributed and scalable protocol where nodes
	independently monitor local conditions and take local actions:

	  o to declare a node to be a hotspot if a combination of MAC
		contention/delays, packet loss, buffer occupancy, and remaining
		energy reserves exceed certain predefined system thresholds;

	  o to suppress new route requests at hotspots to ensure that routed
	  	traffic does not compound congestion problems; and

	  o to throttle traffic locally at hotspots to force TCP flows to
	  	slow down.

2.	Hotspots

2.1 Existence of Hotspots

	Hotspots are generally created when traffic converges to a node or
	small cluster of nodes. Flows traversing multiple wireless hops from
	various locations intersect with each other and create transient


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	hotspot conditions. Hotspot nodes and nodes in the vicinity of
	hotspots (i.e., in hotspot regions) are prone to consume more
	resources than others. Left unchecked such unbalanced resource
	consumption is detrimental to mobile ad hoc networks because
	overtaxed nodes would prematurely exhaust their energy reserves
	before other nodes. As a consequence the network connectivity can be
	unnecessarily impacted.

	In addition, it is observed that hotspot nodes are often responsible
	for generating a large amount of routing overhead. In general, as
	the traffic load increases more hotspots appear and conditions in
	hotspots (or hotspot regions) become aggravated. For detail
	on the evaluation of hotspots in MANETs see [7].

	
2.2 Hotspot Detection 

    	A number of system parameters are used by HMP to identify hotspots.
	These per-node parameters, which are associated with MAC-delays,
	packet loss, and buffer occupancy, can be configured to make HMP's
	hotspot detection mechanism more or less aggressive in its
	declaration of hotspots. In current version of HMP implementation,
	hotspots are detected using 3 criteria:

	1. MAC-delay Violations
	2. Packet Loss
	3. Buffer Occupancy
	
	
2.2.1 MAC-delay Violation	
	
	The MAC_DELAY_THRESH parameter is used by the protocol to detect
	MAC-delay violations. If the measured MAC-delay exceeds the
	MAC_DELAY_THRESH then HMP considers this a MAC-delay violation. If
	the number of these violations exceeds a predefined value called
	N_THRESH then the protocol takes a number of actions discussed
	below. We define the MAC-delay as the measured time for the
	successful transmission of a data packet at the MAC layer. This
	includes the time taken for the RTS-CTS-DATA-ACK message exchange
	over the air. As shown in Figure 1, the MAC-delay measurement represents
	the time between T_(j) and T_(i). Because IEEE 802.11 defines up to
	7 possible retransmissions of a data packet the measured MAC-delay
	could represent up to a maximum of 7 RTS-CTS-DATA-ACK cycles in the
	case were packet loss occurs.




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				Node(A)		Node(B)
				  | 	         	 |
		send RTS at T_(i) | ------- RTS -------> |
				  | <------ CTS -------- |
				  | ------- DATA-------> |
	   receive ACK at T_(j)   | <------ ACK -------- |
	
	   			 MAC-delay = T_(j) - T_(i)
					
			      Figure 1: MAC Delay Measurement
	
	Each node continuously monitors the on-going MAC-delay and compares
	it to the MAC_DELAY_THRESH value. The N_THRESH parameter is used to
	control the sensitivity of the protocol to the measured MAC-delays.
	N_THRESH defines how many consecutive MAC-delay violations can be
	tolerated before a node is declared a hotspot. This parameter
	essentially determines how aggressive HMP is in declaring hotspots.
	In other words, a node is identified as a hotspot when the
	MAC_DELAY_THRESH parameter is consecutively violated more than
	N_THRESH times.
	

2.2.2 Packet Loss

	Hotspot detection also needs to consider the case of packet loss. In
	the case where there is an intermittent packet loss between two
	consecutive MAC-delay violations, HMP takes account of this
	condition during hotspot detection; that is, a node is also
	considered a hotspot when the MAC_DELAY_THRESH parameter is violated
	(N_THRESH - (k)) times, where k is defined as the number of
	intermittent packet losses during a hotspot detection interval. Note
	that HMP monitors packet losses at MAC layer during RTS-CTS-DATA-ACK
	exchange.

    	A hotspot detection interval starts when the first MAC-delay
	violation is observed and lasts until the node either declares
	itself a hotspot based on the criteria described above or a data
	packet is successfully delivered without a MAC-delay violation. The
	MAC-delay violation count maintained by HMP during the hotspot
	detection interval is reset at the beginning of a new interval. Note
	that many MANET routing protocols consider that three consecutive
	packet losses represents link or route failure. Any link failure or
	route error also resets all associated counters/parameters used by
	HMP's hotspot detection.
	
	

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2.2.3 Buffer Occupancy

	HMP also monitors buffer occupancy to identify hotspots. If a node
	detects that the buffer occupancy exceeds a predefined threshold
	called BUFFER_THRESH then it will check for MAC-delay violations.
	The BUFFER_THRESH parameter is set to a buffer level that is less
	than the buffer overflow mark. If BUFFER_THRESH is exceeded and
	there is at least one MAC-delay violation within current hotspot
	detection interval then the node declares itself a hotspot. HMP
	adopt this hybrid approach to hotspot detection because buffer
	occupancy information alone is insufficient to declare a hotspot
	unless the buffer overflow mark is exceeded. As a result HMP
	combines buffer occupancy with MAC-delay violations to make the
	approach more accurate.
	
	
2.3 Hotspot Regions

	A node belongs to a hotspot region if it is a hotspot or it is an
	immediate neighbor of a hotspot node.


3.	Hotspot Mitigation Protocol

3.1 Protocol Operations

	HMP utilizes MAC-delay measurements, packet loss, buffer occupancy
	information, neighbor status information and other resource
	monitoring mechanisms (i.e., energy) to detect hotspots. HMP does
	not limit the scope of monitoring and detection mechanisms, however.
	Operators are free to introduce additional mechanisms and algorithms
	according to their needs. In fact, it is envisioned that a HMP
	network would embody diverse mechanisms operating concurrently. HMP
	utilizes measured information to respond to conditions by executing
	the most appropriate algorithms to alleviate the condition at hand.
	The measured conditions are expressed by a multi-metric parameter
	called STATUS, which consists of two components: symptom and
	severity.


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	Symptom describes the dominant condition a node is experiencing
	while severity expresses the degree of the symptom. For example, a
	node may declare its status as MODERATE_CONGESTION while another
	node may declare its status as CRITICAL_ENERGY.

        HMP piggybacks this status information in the IP option field and
	neighboring nodes operating in promiscuous mode learn the status of
	transmitters by eavesdropping their packets. The eavesdropped
	information is used to create and update a Neighborhood Status Table
	(NST). This status information is cached and locally maintained and
	updated at each node.
	
      0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |Version| IHL |Type of Service|           Total Length          |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
`    |        Identification       |Flags|      Fragment Offset      |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     | Time to Live  |   Protocol  |          Header Checksum        |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |                         Source Address                        |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |                     Destination Address                       |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
     |  Options (Used for HMP Options)   |         Padding           |
     +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

	                        Figure 2.  IP Header




          0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
	 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
	 |    STATUS (Symtom, Severity)  |PI |
	 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+     * PI = PATH_INDICATOR

						    Figure 3. HMP IP Option


	A NST caches a list of immediate neighbors and their status. It is
	primarily used to manipulate new-route-creation decisions at nodes.
	A node refers to its NST to ensure that it is not aggravating the
	conditions of neighboring nodes by creating new routes through them.



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	It is assumed that there exist only a finite number of neighboring
	nodes surrounding any node, which in effect defines the size of the
	NST at a node. Naive suppression of new route creation may prevent
	the use of the only possible path between two hosts and may yield
	poor connectivity in the network, or even cause network partitions.
	To avoid this, the 'new-route-suppression-mechanism' is used, if and
	only if, there exists a sufficient number of non-hotspot neighbors
	within its transmission range. HMP also makes sure that preceding
	nodes en-route also have enough non-hotspot neighbors.

	The notion of enough neighbors is defined by the NUM_ENOUGH_NEIGHBOR
	parameter. This parameter has a direct impact on the network
	connectivity. If NUM_ENOUGH_NEIGHBOR is too small, HMP manifests low
	connectivity and may fail to provide useful routes.
	
	HMP also ensures that it is not inadvertently denying the only
	possible path between two end hosts by utilizing an indicator called
	the 'PATH_INDICATOR', which is carried in the IP option field of
	Route Request messages. A node that has only a few non-hotspot
	neighbors (i.e., number of neighbors less than NUM_ENOUGH_NEIGHBOR)
	sets this indicator (PATH_INDICATOR = 1) and upstream nodes that
	receive the Route Request messages check this indicator and avoid
	suppressing new routes if it is set. Nodes receiving packets with
	this indicator set know that at least one preceding node explicitly
	requested no new-route-suppression. This is a valuable HMP feature
	because it provides a safeguard against potential over-suppression
	of new route creation that may result in limited connectivity.

3.2 Congestion Levels

	Main objective of congestion avoidance algorithms is preventing
	further build up of traffic at hotspots. HMP distinguishes two
	levels of congestion (i.e., levels 1 and 2) and adopts two
	corresponding algorithms to support this view.

	The first algorithm is activated when HMP determines the current
	status of a node is in a moderately congested condition (i.e., level
	1). This algorithm simply suppresses creation of additional routes
	at hotspots by discarding new route request packets. As mentioned
	previously, HMP ensures not to deny the only route between two
	hosts.

	The second algorithm is more aggressive and executes when nodes
	encounter substantial congestion (i.e., level 2). This algorithm is
	executed when a node experiences severe hotspot conditions without
	any non-hotspot neighbors. This algorithm not only suppresses new


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	route creation but also throttles best effort TCP flows traversing
	the node in an attempt to reduce the load using rate control
	mechanisms. TCP flows are bandwidth hungry and unless controlled can
	easily occupy all remaining wireless medium bandwidth. Throttling
	TCP rates locally in this manner does not necessarily hurt TCP
	sessions but can effectively relieve congestion bottlenecks. Users
	and operators are free to introduce other schemes to relieve
	congestion conditions, e.g., one simple policy is dropping TCP
	packets at bottleneck nodes.

	HMP attacks the congestion at the point of congestion as opposed to
	a traditional end-to-end approach. Although congestion is an
	end-to-end issue where it is detected and controlled (e.g., as in
	the case of TCP), traditional remedies for end-to-end congestion
	control are not effective in mobile ad hoc networks. In fact, such
	traditional control mechanisms may limit the utilization of the
	wireless medium that is constrained by hotspots. We argue that we
	can avoid such shortcomings if we tackle the problem at the point of
	congestion rather than responding on end-to-end basis.

3.3 Energy-awareness

	Mobile ad hoc networks are essentially energy-limited networks and
	are likely to be comprised of heterogeneous nodes with diverse
	energy constraints. Some mobile devices will have large energy
	reserves in comparison to others. There exist various energy-aware
	power-conserving protocols for mobile ad hoc networks. The common
	objective of these protocols lie in conserving energy as much as
	possible to prolong the lifetime of the network or extend the
	lifetime of individual nodes. Although energy conservation is not a
	primary concern of HMP, the protocol provides a simple mechanism to
	conserve energy through its status declaration mechanism. A node
	with limited energy reserves can declare itself a hotspot when its
	energy reserves are marginally or critically low.

	A node with energy concerns is acknowledged by neighboring nodes and
	new route creation through such a node is avoided if possible. On
	the other hand, a node with critical energy immediately relinquishes
	its role as a router and functions strictly as an end host in order
	to conserve energy (maximize its lifetime) unless it is identified
	as the only intermediate node between two communicating end hosts.







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3.4 Protocol Sensitivity

	Three key parameters govern the HMP system control mechanisms. These
	are, MAC_DELAY_THRESH, N_THRESH and NUM_ENOUGH_NEIGHBOR. A 
        sensitivity analysis is provided in [7].

	For example, if the MAC_DELAY_THRESH value is too small HMP becomes
	aggressive and may declare too many hotspots. A small increase in
	the MAC-delay measurement (or jitter) may falsely be recognized as
	congestion with many nodes being claimed as hotspots. In contrast,
	if the MAC_DELAY_THRESH value is too large HMP may not identify any
	hotspots in the network and relegate itself to the baseline system.

	The second parameter N_THRESH is used to prevent HMP from reacting
	to transient behavior. A momentary increase in the MAC-delay
	measurement and buffer occupancy are not necessarily a product of
	congestion or excessive contention. Delay may be observed for a very
	short period due to the rerouting of flows or a small burst of route
	query packets. Reacting to such transitory phenomenon is not
	beneficial because real hotspots cannot be distinguished from
	transient events.

    	The third parameter is the NUM_ENOUGH_NEIGHBOR. Naive suppression of
	new route creation at a hotspot node may prevent the use of the
	'only possible path' between two hosts and may yield poor
	connectivity in the network, or even cause network partitions. To
	avoid this, a new-route-suppression mechanism is executed, if and
	only if, there exists a sufficient number of non-hotspot neighbors
	within its transmission range. The notion of 'sufficient number of
	neighbors' is defined by the NUM_ENOUGH_NEIGHBOR parameter. This
	information is piggybacked through PATH_INDICATOR to ensure that
	preceding nodes en-route meet this 'sufficient number of neighbors'
	condition when 'new-route-suppression' is executed.

		
4. Acknowledgement

	This work is supported in part by the Army Research Office (ARO)
	under Award DAAD19-99-1-0287 and with support from COMET Group
	industrial sponsors.









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5. Reference

[1]	C. Perkins and E. Royer. "Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing.
	Proc. of the 2nd IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and
	Applications, New Orleans, LA, February 1999, pp. 90-100

[2]	David B. Johnson, David A. Maltz, and Josh Broch. "DSR: The Dynamic
	Source Routing Protocol for Multi-Hop WirelessAd Hoc Networks", in
	Ad Hoc Networking, edited by Charles E. Perkins, Chapter 5, pp.
	139-172, Addison-Wesley, 2001

[3]	V. Park and S. Corson "A Highly Adaptive Distributed Routing
	Algorithm for Mobile Wireless Networks, Proc. IEEE Infocom 1997,
	Kobe, Japan

[4]	Samir R. Das, Charles E. Perkins, and Elizabeth M. Royer.
	"Performance Comparison of Two On-demand Routing Protocols for Ad
	Hoc Networks." Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Computer
	Communications (INFOCOM), Tel Aviv, Israel, March 2000
	
[5]	S.B Lee, G.S. Ahn, and A.T. Campbell, "Improving UDP and TCP
	Performance in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks with INSIGNIA", June 2001,
	IEEE Communication Magazine.

[6]	S.J. Lee and M. Gerla "Dynamic Load-Aware Routing in Ad hoc
	Networks" Proceedings of IEEE ICC 2001, Helsinki, Finland, June 2001

[7]   Seoung-Bum Lee and Andrew T. Campbell, "HMP: Hotspot Mitigation
	Protocol for Mobile Ad hoc networks", Ad Hoc Networks Journal,
	Vol.1 No.1, March 2003



6. Author's Addresses
    
   		Seoung-Bum Lee, Jiyoung Cho, Andrew T. Campbell
    
   		Department of Electrical Engineering,
		Columbia University,
		500 W. 120th Street, Room 1312, New York, NY 10027

		Phone	: 1-212-854-0608
		Fax 	: 1-212-316-9068
		Email	: sbl@comet.columbia.edu




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