RED aims to control the average queue size by indicating to the end hosts when they should temporarily slow down transmission of packets.

RED takes advantage of the congestion control mechanism of TCP. By randomly dropping packets prior to periods of high congestion, RED tells the packet source to decrease its transmission rate. Assuming the packet source is using TCP, it will decrease its transmission rate until all the packets reach their destination, indicating that the congestion is cleared. You can use RED as a way to cause TCP to slow down transmission of packets. TCP not only pauses, but it also restarts quickly and adapts its transmission rate to the rate that the network can support.

RED distributes losses in time and maintains normally low queue depth while absorbing spikes. When enabled on an interface, RED begins dropping packets when congestion occurs at a rate you select during configuration.

For an explanation of how the Cisco WRED implementation determines parameters to use in the WRED queue size calculations and how to determine optimum values to use for the weight factor, see the section Average Queue Size later in this module.

The packet drop probability is based on the minimum threshold, maximum threshold, and mark probability denominator.

When the average queue depth is above the minimum threshold, RED starts dropping packets. The rate of packet drop increases linearly as the average queue size increases until the average queue size reaches the maximum threshold.

The mark probability denominator is the fraction of packets dropped when the average queue depth is at the maximum threshold. For example, if the denominator is 512, one out of every 512 packets is dropped when the average queue is at the maximum threshold.

When the average queue size is above the maximum threshold, all packets are dropped. The figure below summarizes the packet drop probability.

Figure 1

RED Packet Drop Probability

The minimum threshold value should be set high enough to maximize the link utilization. If the minimum threshold is too low, packets may be dropped unnecessarily, and the transmission link will not be fully used.

The difference between the maximum threshold and the minimum threshold should be large enough to avoid global synchronization of TCP hosts (global synchronization of TCP hosts can occur as multiple TCP hosts reduce their transmission rates). If the difference between the maximum and minimum thresholds is too small, many packets may be dropped at once, resulting in global synchronization.

Note

The sections How TCP Handles Traffic Loss and How the Router Interacts with TCP contain detailed information that you need not read in order to use WRED or to have a general sense of the capabilities of RED. If you want to understand why problems of global synchronization occur in response to congestion and how RED addresses them, read these sections.

When the recipient of TCP traffic--called the receiver--receives a data segment, it checks the four octet (32-bit) sequence number of that segment against the number the receiver expected, which would indicate that the data segment was received in order. If the numbers match, the receiver delivers all of the data that it holds to the target application, then it updates the sequence number to reflect the next number in order, and finally it either immediately sends an acknowledgment (ACK) packet to the sender or it schedules an ACK to be sent to the sender after a short delay. The ACK notifies the sender that the receiver received all data segments up to but not including the one marked with the new sequence number.

Receivers usually try to send an ACK in response to alternating data segments they receive; they send the ACK because for many applications, if the receiver waits out a small delay, it can efficiently include its reply acknowledgment on a normal response to the sender. However, when the receiver receives a data segment out of order, it immediately responds with an ACK to direct the sender to resend the lost data segment.

When the sender receives an ACK, it makes this determination: It determines if any data is outstanding. If no data is outstanding, the sender determines that the ACK is a keepalive, meant to keep the line active, and it does nothing. If data is outstanding, the sender determines whether the ACK indicates that the receiver has received some or none of the data. If the ACK indicates receipt of some data sent, the sender determines if new credit has been granted to allow it to send more data. When the ACK indicates receipt of none of the data sent and there is outstanding data, the sender interprets the ACK to be a repeatedly sent ACK. This condition indicates that some data was received out of order, forcing the receiver to remit the first ACK, and that a second data segment was received out of order, forcing the receiver to remit the second ACK. In most cases, the receiver would receive two segments out of order because one of the data segments had been dropped.

When a TCP sender detects a dropped data segment, it resends the segment. Then it adjusts its transmission rate to half of what is was before the drop was detected. This is the TCP back-off or slow-down behavior. Although this behavior is appropriately responsive to congestion, problems can arise when multiple TCP sessions are carried on concurrently with the same router and all TCP senders slow down transmission of packets at the same time.

Note

The sections How TCP Handles Traffic Loss and How the Router Interacts with TCP contain detailed information that you need not read in order to use WRED or to have a general sense of the capabilities of RED. If you want to understand why problems of global synchronization occur in response to congestion and how RED addresses them, read these sections.

To see how the router interacts with TCP, we will look at an example. In this example, on average, the router receives traffic from one particular TCP stream every other, every 10th, and every 100th or 200th message in the interface in MAE-EAST or FIX-WEST. A router can handle multiple concurrent TCP sessions. Because network flows are additive, there is a high probability that when traffic exceeds the Transmit Queue Limit (TQL) at all, it will vastly exceed the limit. However, there is also a high probability that the excessive traffic depth is temporary and that traffic will not stay excessively deep except at points where traffic flows merge or at edge routers.

If the router drops all traffic that exceeds the TQL, many TCP sessions will simultaneously go into slow start. Consequently, traffic temporarily slows down to the extreme and then all flows slow-start again; this activity creates a condition of global synchronization.

However, if the router drops no traffic, as is the case when queueing features such as fair queueing or priority queueing (PQ) are used, then the data is likely to be stored in main memory, drastically degrading router performance.

By directing one TCP session at a time to slow down, RED solves the problems described, allowing for full utilization of the bandwidth rather than utilization manifesting as crests and troughs of traffic.

WRED makes early detection of congestion possible and provides for multiple classes of traffic. It also protects against global synchronization. For these reasons, WRED is useful on any output interface where you expect congestion to occur.

However, WRED is usually used in the core routers of a network, rather than at the edge of the network. Edge routers assign IP precedences to packets as they enter the network. WRED uses these precedences to determine how to treat different types of traffic.

WRED provides separate thresholds and weights for different IP precedences, allowing you to provide different qualities of service in regard to packet dropping for different traffic types. Standard traffic may be dropped more frequently than premium traffic during periods of congestion.

WRED is also RSVP-aware, and it can provide the controlled-load QoS service of integrated service.

By randomly dropping packets prior to periods of high congestion, WRED tells the packet source to decrease its transmission rate. If the packet source is using TCP, it will decrease its transmission rate until all the packets reach their destination, which indicates that the congestion is cleared.

WRED generally drops packets selectively based on IP precedence. Packets with a higher IP precedence are less likely to be dropped than packets with a lower precedence. Thus, the higher the priority of a packet, the higher the probability that the packet will be delivered.

WRED selectively drops packets when the output interface begins to show signs of congestion. By dropping some packets early rather than waiting until the queue is full, WRED avoids dropping large numbers of packets at once and minimizes the chances of global synchronization. Thus, WRED allows the transmission line to be used fully at all times.

In addition, WRED statistically drops more packets from large users than small. Therefore, traffic sources that generate the most traffic are more likely to be slowed down than traffic sources that generate little traffic.

WRED helps to avoid the globalization problems. Global synchronization manifests when multiple TCP hosts reduce their transmission rates in response to packet dropping and then increase their transmission rates once again when the congestion is reduced.

WRED is only useful when the bulk of the traffic is TCP/IP traffic. With TCP, dropped packets indicate congestion, so the packet source will reduce its transmission rate. With other protocols, packet sources may not respond or may resend dropped packets at the same rate. Thus, dropping packets does not decrease congestion.

WRED treats non-IP traffic as precedence 0, the lowest precedence. Therefore, non-IP traffic, in general, is more likely to be dropped than IP traffic.

The figure below illustrates how WRED works.

Figure 2

Weighted Random Early Detection

The router automatically determines parameters to use in the WRED calculations. The average queue size is based on the previous average and the current size of the queue. The formula is:

average = (old_average * (1-2 -n)) + (current_queue_size * 2 
-n
)

where n is the exponential weight factor, a user-configurable value. The default value of the exponential weight factor is 4. It is recommended to use only the default value for the exponential weight factor. Change this value from the default value only if you have determined that your scenario would benefit from using a different value.

For high values of n, the previous average becomes more important. A large factor smooths out the peaks and lows in queue length. The average queue size is unlikely to change very quickly, avoiding drastic swings in size. The WRED process will be slow to start dropping packets, but it may continue dropping packets for a time after the actual queue size has fallen below the minimum threshold. The slow-moving average will accommodate temporary bursts in traffic.

Note	If the value of n gets too high, WRED will not react to congestion. Packets will be sent or dropped as if WRED were not in effect.

For low values of n, the average queue size closely tracks the current queue size. The resulting average may fluctuate with changes in the traffic levels. In this case, the WRED process responds quickly to long queues. Once the queue falls below the minimum threshold, the process will stop dropping packets.

If the value of n gets too low, WRED will overreact to temporary traffic bursts and drop traffic unnecessarily.