1..  SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
2    Copyright(c) 2010-2014 Intel Corporation.
3
4Quality of Service (QoS) Framework
5==================================
6
7This chapter describes the DPDK Quality of Service (QoS) framework.
8
9Packet Pipeline with QoS Support
10--------------------------------
11
12An example of a complex packet processing pipeline with QoS support is shown in the following figure.
13
14.. _figure_pkt_proc_pipeline_qos:
15
16.. figure:: img/pkt_proc_pipeline_qos.*
17
18   Complex Packet Processing Pipeline with QoS Support
19
20
21This pipeline can be built using reusable DPDK software libraries.
22The main blocks implementing QoS in this pipeline are: the policer, the dropper and the scheduler.
23A functional description of each block is provided in the following table.
24
25.. _table_qos_1:
26
27.. table:: Packet Processing Pipeline Implementing QoS
28
29   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
30   | # | Block                  | Functional Description                                                         |
31   |   |                        |                                                                                |
32   +===+========================+================================================================================+
33   | 1 | Packet I/O RX & TX     | Packet reception/ transmission from/to multiple NIC ports. Poll mode drivers   |
34   |   |                        | (PMDs) for Intel 1 GbE/10 GbE NICs.                                            |
35   |   |                        |                                                                                |
36   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
37   | 2 | Packet parser          | Identify the protocol stack of the input packet. Check the integrity of the    |
38   |   |                        | packet headers.                                                                |
39   |   |                        |                                                                                |
40   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
41   | 3 | Flow classification    | Map the input packet to one of the known traffic flows. Exact match table      |
42   |   |                        | lookup using configurable hash function (jhash, CRC and so on) and bucket      |
43   |   |                        | logic to handle collisions.                                                    |
44   |   |                        |                                                                                |
45   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
46   | 4 | Policer                | Packet metering using srTCM (RFC 2697) or trTCM (RFC2698) algorithms.          |
47   |   |                        |                                                                                |
48   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
49   | 5 | Load Balancer          | Distribute the input packets to the application workers. Provide uniform load  |
50   |   |                        | to each worker. Preserve the affinity of traffic flows to workers and the      |
51   |   |                        | packet order within each flow.                                                 |
52   |   |                        |                                                                                |
53   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
54   | 6 | Worker threads         | Placeholders for the customer specific application workload (for example, IP   |
55   |   |                        | stack and so on).                                                              |
56   |   |                        |                                                                                |
57   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
58   | 7 | Dropper                | Congestion management using the Random Early Detection (RED) algorithm         |
59   |   |                        | (specified by the Sally Floyd - Van Jacobson paper) or Weighted RED (WRED).    |
60   |   |                        | Drop packets based on the current scheduler queue load level and packet        |
61   |   |                        | priority. When congestion is experienced, lower priority packets are dropped   |
62   |   |                        | first.                                                                         |
63   |   |                        |                                                                                |
64   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
65   | 8 | Hierarchical Scheduler | 5-level hierarchical scheduler (levels are: output port, subport, pipe,        |
66   |   |                        | traffic class and queue) with thousands (typically 64K) leaf nodes (queues).   |
67   |   |                        | Implements traffic shaping (for subport and pipe levels), strict priority      |
68   |   |                        | (for traffic class level) and Weighted Round Robin (WRR) (for queues within    |
69   |   |                        | each pipe traffic class).                                                      |
70   |   |                        |                                                                                |
71   +---+------------------------+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
72
73The infrastructure blocks used throughout the packet processing pipeline are listed in the following table.
74
75.. _table_qos_2:
76
77.. table:: Infrastructure Blocks Used by the Packet Processing Pipeline
78
79   +---+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
80   | # | Block                 | Functional Description                                                |
81   |   |                       |                                                                       |
82   +===+=======================+=======================================================================+
83   | 1 | Buffer manager        | Support for global buffer pools and private per-thread buffer caches. |
84   |   |                       |                                                                       |
85   +---+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
86   | 2 | Queue manager         | Support for message passing between pipeline blocks.                  |
87   |   |                       |                                                                       |
88   +---+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
89   | 3 | Power saving          | Support for power saving during low activity periods.                 |
90   |   |                       |                                                                       |
91   +---+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
92
93The mapping of pipeline blocks to CPU cores is configurable based on the performance level required by each specific application
94and the set of features enabled for each block.
95Some blocks might consume more than one CPU core (with each CPU core running a different instance of the same block on different input packets),
96while several other blocks could be mapped to the same CPU core.
97
98Hierarchical Scheduler
99----------------------
100
101The hierarchical scheduler block, when present, usually sits on the TX side just before the transmission stage.
102Its purpose is to prioritize the transmission of packets from different users and different traffic classes
103according to the policy specified by the Service Level Agreements (SLAs) of each network node.
104
105Overview
106~~~~~~~~
107
108The hierarchical scheduler block is similar to the traffic manager block used by network processors
109that typically implement per flow (or per group of flows) packet queuing and scheduling.
110It typically acts like a buffer that is able to temporarily store a large number of packets just before their transmission (enqueue operation);
111as the NIC TX is requesting more packets for transmission,
112these packets are later on removed and handed over to the NIC TX with the packet selection logic observing the predefined SLAs (dequeue operation).
113
114.. _figure_hier_sched_blk:
115
116.. figure:: img/hier_sched_blk.*
117
118   Hierarchical Scheduler Block Internal Diagram
119
120
121The hierarchical scheduler is optimized for a large number of packet queues.
122When only a small number of queues are needed, message passing queues should be used instead of this block.
123See `Worst Case Scenarios for Performance`_ for a more detailed discussion.
124
125Scheduling Hierarchy
126~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
127
128The scheduling hierarchy is shown in :numref:`figure_sched_hier_per_port`.
129The first level of the hierarchy is the Ethernet TX port 1/10/40 GbE,
130with subsequent hierarchy levels defined as subport, pipe, traffic class and queue.
131
132Typically, each subport represents a predefined group of users, while each pipe represents an individual user/subscriber.
133Each traffic class is the representation of a different traffic type with specific loss rate,
134delay and jitter requirements, such as voice, video or data transfers.
135Each queue hosts packets from one or multiple connections of the same type belonging to the same user.
136
137.. _figure_sched_hier_per_port:
138
139.. figure:: img/sched_hier_per_port.*
140
141   Scheduling Hierarchy per Port
142
143
144The functionality of each hierarchical level is detailed in the following table.
145
146.. _table_qos_3:
147
148.. table:: Port Scheduling Hierarchy
149
150   +---+--------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
151   | # | Level              | Siblings per Parent        | Functional Description                                        |
152   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
153   +===+====================+============================+===============================================================+
154   | 1 | Port               | -                          | #.  Output Ethernet port 1/10/40 GbE.                         |
155   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
156   |   |                    |                            | #.  Multiple ports are scheduled in round robin order with    |
157   |   |                    |                            |     all ports having equal priority.                          |
158   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
159   +---+--------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
160   | 2 | Subport            | Configurable (default: 8)  | #.  Traffic shaping using token bucket algorithm (one token   |
161   |   |                    |                            |     bucket per subport).                                      |
162   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
163   |   |                    |                            | #.  Upper limit enforced per Traffic Class (TC) at the        |
164   |   |                    |                            |     subport level.                                            |
165   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
166   |   |                    |                            | #.  Lower priority TCs able to reuse subport bandwidth        |
167   |   |                    |                            |     currently unused by higher priority TCs.                  |
168   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
169   +---+--------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
170   | 3 | Pipe               | Configurable (default: 4K) | #.  Traffic shaping using the token bucket algorithm (one     |
171   |   |                    |                            |     token bucket per pipe.                                    |
172   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
173   +---+--------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
174   | 4 | Traffic Class (TC) | 13                         | #.  TCs of the same pipe handled in strict priority order.    |
175   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
176   |   |                    |                            | #.  Upper limit enforced per TC at the pipe level.            |
177   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
178   |   |                    |                            | #.  Lower priority TCs able to reuse pipe bandwidth currently |
179   |   |                    |                            |     unused by higher priority TCs.                            |
180   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
181   |   |                    |                            | #.  When subport TC is oversubscribed (configuration time     |
182   |   |                    |                            |     event), pipe TC upper limit is capped to a dynamically    |
183   |   |                    |                            |     adjusted value that is shared by all the subport pipes.   |
184   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
185   +---+--------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
186   | 5 | Queue              |  High priority TCs: 1,     | #.  All the high priority TCs (TC0, TC1,  ...,TC11) have      |
187   |   |                    |  Lowest priority TC: 4     |     exactly 1 queue, while the lowest priority TC (TC12),     |
188   |   |                    |                            |     called Best Effort (BE), has 4 queues.                    |
189   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
190   |   |                    |                            | #.  Queues of the lowest priority TC (BE) are serviced using  |
191   |   |                    |                            |     Weighted Round Robin (WRR) according to predefined weights|
192   |   |                    |                            |     weights.                                                  |
193   |   |                    |                            |                                                               |
194   +---+--------------------+----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
195
196Application Programming Interface (API)
197~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
198
199Port Scheduler Configuration API
200^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
201
202The rte_sched.h file contains configuration functions for port, subport and pipe.
203
204Port Scheduler Enqueue API
205^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
206
207The port scheduler enqueue API is very similar to the API of the DPDK PMD TX function.
208
209.. code-block:: c
210
211    int rte_sched_port_enqueue(struct rte_sched_port *port, struct rte_mbuf **pkts, uint32_t n_pkts);
212
213Port Scheduler Dequeue API
214^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
215
216The port scheduler dequeue API is very similar to the API of the DPDK PMD RX function.
217
218.. code-block:: c
219
220    int rte_sched_port_dequeue(struct rte_sched_port *port, struct rte_mbuf **pkts, uint32_t n_pkts);
221
222Usage Example
223^^^^^^^^^^^^^
224
225.. code-block:: c
226
227    /* File "application.c" */
228
229    #define N_PKTS_RX   64
230    #define N_PKTS_TX   48
231    #define NIC_RX_PORT 0
232    #define NIC_RX_QUEUE 0
233    #define NIC_TX_PORT 1
234    #define NIC_TX_QUEUE 0
235
236    struct rte_sched_port *port = NULL;
237    struct rte_mbuf *pkts_rx[N_PKTS_RX], *pkts_tx[N_PKTS_TX];
238    uint32_t n_pkts_rx, n_pkts_tx;
239
240    /* Initialization */
241
242    <initialization code>
243
244    /* Runtime */
245    while (1) {
246        /* Read packets from NIC RX queue */
247
248        n_pkts_rx = rte_eth_rx_burst(NIC_RX_PORT, NIC_RX_QUEUE, pkts_rx, N_PKTS_RX);
249
250        /* Hierarchical scheduler enqueue */
251
252        rte_sched_port_enqueue(port, pkts_rx, n_pkts_rx);
253
254        /* Hierarchical scheduler dequeue */
255
256        n_pkts_tx = rte_sched_port_dequeue(port, pkts_tx, N_PKTS_TX);
257
258        /* Write packets to NIC TX queue */
259
260        rte_eth_tx_burst(NIC_TX_PORT, NIC_TX_QUEUE, pkts_tx, n_pkts_tx);
261    }
262
263Implementation
264~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
265
266Internal Data Structures per Port
267^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
268
269A schematic of the internal data structures in shown in with details in.
270
271.. _figure_data_struct_per_port:
272
273.. figure:: img/data_struct_per_port.*
274
275    Internal Data Structures per Port
276
277
278.. _table_qos_4:
279
280.. table:: Scheduler Internal Data Structures per Port
281
282   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
283   | # | Data structure       | Size (bytes)            | # per port          | Access type                  | Description                                       |
284   |   |                      |                         |                     |                              |                                                   |
285   |   |                      |                         |                     +-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
286   |   |                      |                         |                     | Enq         | Deq            |                                                   |
287   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
288   +===+======================+=========================+=====================+=============+================+===================================================+
289   | 1 | Subport table entry  | 64                      | # subports per port | -           | Rd, Wr         | Persistent subport data (credits, etc).           |
290   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
291   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
292   | 2 | Pipe table entry     | 64                      | # pipes per port    | -           | Rd, Wr         | Persistent data for pipe, its TCs and its queues  |
293   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | (credits, etc) that is updated during run-time.   |
294   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
295   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | The pipe configuration parameters do not change   |
296   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | during run-time. The same pipe configuration      |
297   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | parameters are shared by multiple pipes,          |
298   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | therefore they are not part of pipe table entry.  |
299   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
300   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
301   | 3 | Queue table entry    | 4                       | #queues per port    | Rd, Wr      | Rd, Wr         | Persistent queue data (read and write pointers).  |
302   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | The queue size is the same per TC for all queues, |
303   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | allowing the queue base address to be computed    |
304   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | using a fast formula, so these two parameters are |
305   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | not part of queue table entry.                    |
306   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
307   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | The queue table entries for any given pipe are    |
308   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | stored in the same cache line.                    |
309   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
310   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
311   | 4 | Queue storage area   | Config (default: 64 x8) | # queues per port   | Wr          | Rd             | Array of elements per queue; each element is 8    |
312   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | byte in size (mbuf pointer).                      |
313   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
314   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
315   | 5 | Active queues bitmap | 1 bit per queue         | 1                   | Wr (Set)    | Rd, Wr (Clear) | The bitmap maintains one status bit per queue:    |
316   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | queue not active (queue is empty) or queue active |
317   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | (queue is not empty).                             |
318   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
319   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | Queue bit is set by the scheduler enqueue and     |
320   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | cleared by the scheduler dequeue when queue       |
321   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | becomes empty.                                    |
322   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
323   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | Bitmap scan operation returns the next non-empty  |
324   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | pipe and its status (16-bit mask of active queue  |
325   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | in the pipe).                                     |
326   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
327   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
328   | 6 | Grinder              | ~128                    | Config (default: 8) | -           | Rd, Wr         | Short list of active pipes currently under        |
329   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | processing. The grinder contains temporary data   |
330   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | during pipe processing.                           |
331   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
332   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | Once the current pipe exhausts packets or         |
333   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | credits, it is replaced with another active pipe  |
334   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                | from the bitmap.                                  |
335   |   |                      |                         |                     |             |                |                                                   |
336   +---+----------------------+-------------------------+---------------------+-------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------+
337
338Multicore Scaling Strategy
339^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
340
341The multicore scaling strategy is:
342
343#.  Running different physical ports on different threads. The enqueue and dequeue of the same port are run by the same thread.
344
345#.  Splitting the same physical port to different threads by running different sets of subports of the same physical port (virtual ports) on different threads.
346    Similarly, a subport can be split into multiple subports that are each run by a different thread.
347    The enqueue and dequeue of the same port are run by the same thread.
348    This is only required if, for performance reasons, it is not possible to handle a full port with a single core.
349
350Enqueue and Dequeue for the Same Output Port
351""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
352
353Running enqueue and dequeue operations for the same output port from different cores is likely to cause significant impact on scheduler's performance
354and it is therefore not recommended.
355
356The port enqueue and dequeue operations share access to the following data structures:
357
358#.  Packet descriptors
359
360#.  Queue table
361
362#.  Queue storage area
363
364#.  Bitmap of active queues
365
366The expected drop in performance is due to:
367
368#.  Need to make the queue and bitmap operations thread safe,
369    which requires either using locking primitives for access serialization (for example, spinlocks/ semaphores) or
370    using atomic primitives for lockless access (for example, Test and Set, Compare And Swap, an so on).
371    The impact is much higher in the former case.
372
373#.  Ping-pong of cache lines storing the shared data structures between the cache hierarchies of the two cores
374    (done transparently by the MESI protocol cache coherency CPU hardware).
375
376Therefore, the scheduler enqueue and dequeue operations have to be run from the same thread,
377which allows the queues and the bitmap operations to be non-thread safe and
378keeps the scheduler data structures internal to the same core.
379
380Performance Scaling
381"""""""""""""""""""
382
383Scaling up the number of NIC ports simply requires a proportional increase in the number of CPU cores to be used for traffic scheduling.
384
385Enqueue Pipeline
386^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
387
388The sequence of steps per packet:
389
390#.  *Access* the mbuf to read the data fields required to identify the destination queue for the packet.
391    These fields are: port, subport, traffic class and queue within traffic class, and are typically set by the classification stage.
392
393#.  *Access* the queue structure to identify the write location in the queue array.
394    If the queue is full, then the packet is discarded.
395
396#.  *Access* the queue array location to store the packet (i.e. write the mbuf pointer).
397
398It should be noted the strong data dependency between these steps, as steps 2 and 3 cannot start before the result from steps 1 and 2 becomes available,
399which prevents the processor out of order execution engine to provide any significant performance optimizations.
400
401Given the high rate of input packets and the large amount of queues,
402it is expected that the data structures accessed to enqueue the current packet are not present
403in the L1 or L2 data cache of the current core, thus the above 3 memory accesses would result (on average) in L1 and L2 data cache misses.
404A number of 3 L1/L2 cache misses per packet is not acceptable for performance reasons.
405
406The workaround is to prefetch the required data structures in advance. The prefetch operation has an execution latency during which
407the processor should not attempt to access the data structure currently under prefetch, so the processor should execute other work.
408The only other work available is to execute different stages of the enqueue sequence of operations on other input packets,
409thus resulting in a pipelined implementation for the enqueue operation.
410
411:numref:`figure_prefetch_pipeline` illustrates a pipelined implementation for the enqueue operation with 4 pipeline stages and each stage executing 2 different input packets.
412No input packet can be part of more than one pipeline stage at a given time.
413
414.. _figure_prefetch_pipeline:
415
416.. figure:: img/prefetch_pipeline.*
417
418    Prefetch Pipeline for the Hierarchical Scheduler Enqueue Operation
419
420
421The congestion management scheme implemented by the enqueue pipeline described above is very basic:
422packets are enqueued until a specific queue becomes full,
423then all the packets destined to the same queue are dropped until packets are consumed (by the dequeue operation).
424This can be improved by enabling RED/WRED as part of the enqueue pipeline which looks at the queue occupancy and
425packet priority in order to yield the enqueue/drop decision for a specific packet
426(as opposed to enqueuing all packets / dropping all packets indiscriminately).
427
428Dequeue State Machine
429^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
430
431The sequence of steps to schedule the next packet from the current pipe is:
432
433#.  Identify the next active pipe using the bitmap scan operation, *prefetch* pipe.
434
435#.  *Read* pipe data structure. Update the credits for the current pipe and its subport.
436    Identify the first active traffic class within the current pipe, select the next queue using WRR,
437    *prefetch* queue pointers for all the 16 queues of the current pipe.
438
439#.  *Read* next element from the current WRR queue and *prefetch* its packet descriptor.
440
441#.  *Read* the packet length from the packet descriptor (mbuf structure).
442    Based on the packet length and the available credits (of current pipe, pipe traffic class, subport and subport traffic class),
443    take the go/no go scheduling decision for the current packet.
444
445To avoid the cache misses, the above data structures (pipe, queue, queue array, mbufs) are prefetched in advance of being accessed.
446The strategy of hiding the latency of the prefetch operations is to switch from the current pipe (in grinder A) to another pipe
447(in grinder B) immediately after a prefetch is issued for the current pipe.
448This gives enough time to the prefetch operation to complete before the execution switches back to this pipe (in grinder A).
449
450The dequeue pipe state machine exploits the data presence into the processor cache,
451therefore it tries to send as many packets from the same pipe TC and pipe as possible (up to the available packets and credits) before
452moving to the next active TC from the same pipe (if any) or to another active pipe.
453
454.. _figure_pipe_prefetch_sm:
455
456.. figure:: img/pipe_prefetch_sm.*
457
458   Pipe Prefetch State Machine for the Hierarchical Scheduler Dequeue
459   Operation
460
461
462Timing and Synchronization
463^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
464
465The output port is modeled as a conveyor belt of byte slots that need to be filled by the scheduler with data for transmission.
466For 10 GbE, there are 1.25 billion byte slots that need to be filled by the port scheduler every second.
467If the scheduler is not fast enough to fill the slots, provided that enough packets and credits exist,
468then some slots will be left unused and bandwidth will be wasted.
469
470In principle, the hierarchical scheduler dequeue operation should be triggered by NIC TX.
471Usually, once the occupancy of the NIC TX input queue drops below a predefined threshold,
472the port scheduler is woken up (interrupt based or polling based,
473by continuously monitoring the queue occupancy) to push more packets into the queue.
474
475Internal Time Reference
476"""""""""""""""""""""""
477
478The scheduler needs to keep track of time advancement for the credit logic,
479which requires credit updates based on time (for example, subport and pipe traffic shaping, traffic class upper limit enforcement, and so on).
480
481Every time the scheduler decides to send a packet out to the NIC TX for transmission, the scheduler will increment its internal time reference accordingly.
482Therefore, it is convenient to keep the internal time reference in units of bytes,
483where a byte signifies the time duration required by the physical interface to send out a byte on the transmission medium.
484This way, as a packet is scheduled for transmission, the time is incremented with (n + h),
485where n is the packet length in bytes and h is the number of framing overhead bytes per packet.
486
487Internal Time Reference Re-synchronization
488""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
489
490The scheduler needs to align its internal time reference to the pace of the port conveyor belt.
491The reason is to make sure that the scheduler does not feed the NIC TX with more bytes than the line rate of the physical medium in order to prevent packet drop
492(by the scheduler, due to the NIC TX input queue being full, or later on, internally by the NIC TX).
493
494The scheduler reads the current time on every dequeue invocation.
495The CPU time stamp can be obtained by reading either the Time Stamp Counter (TSC) register or the High Precision Event Timer (HPET) register.
496The current CPU time stamp is converted from number of CPU clocks to number of bytes:
497*time_bytes = time_cycles / cycles_per_byte, where cycles_per_byte*
498is the amount of CPU cycles that is equivalent to the transmission time for one byte on the wire
499(e.g. for a CPU frequency of 2 GHz and a 10GbE port,*cycles_per_byte = 1.6*).
500
501The scheduler maintains an internal time reference of the NIC time.
502Whenever a packet is scheduled, the NIC time is incremented with the packet length (including framing overhead).
503On every dequeue invocation, the scheduler checks its internal reference of the NIC time against the current time:
504
505#. If NIC time is in the future (NIC time >= current time), no adjustment of NIC time is needed.
506   This means that scheduler is able to schedule NIC packets before the NIC actually needs those packets, so the NIC TX is well supplied with packets;
507
508#. If NIC time is in the past (NIC time < current time), then NIC time should be adjusted by setting it to the current time.
509   This means that the scheduler is not able to keep up with the speed of the NIC byte conveyor belt,
510   so NIC bandwidth is wasted due to poor packet supply to the NIC TX.
511
512Scheduler Accuracy and Granularity
513""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
514
515The scheduler round trip delay (SRTD) is the time (number of CPU cycles) between two consecutive examinations of the same pipe by the scheduler.
516
517To keep up with the output port (that is, avoid bandwidth loss),
518the scheduler should be able to schedule n packets faster than the same n packets are transmitted by NIC TX.
519
520The scheduler needs to keep up with the rate of each individual pipe,
521as configured for the pipe token bucket, assuming that no port oversubscription is taking place.
522This means that the size of the pipe token bucket should be set high enough to prevent it from overflowing due to big SRTD,
523as this would result in credit loss (and therefore bandwidth loss) for the pipe.
524
525Credit Logic
526^^^^^^^^^^^^
527
528Scheduling Decision
529"""""""""""""""""""
530
531The scheduling decision to send next packet from (subport S, pipe P, traffic class TC, queue Q) is favorable (packet is sent)
532when all the conditions below are met:
533
534*   Pipe P of subport S is currently selected by one of the port grinders;
535
536*   Traffic class TC is the highest priority active traffic class of pipe P;
537
538*   Queue Q is the next queue selected by WRR within traffic class TC of pipe P;
539
540*   Subport S has enough credits to send the packet;
541
542*   Subport S has enough credits for traffic class TC to send the packet;
543
544*   Pipe P has enough credits to send the packet;
545
546*   Pipe P has enough credits for traffic class TC to send the packet.
547
548If all the above conditions are met,
549then the packet is selected for transmission and the necessary credits are subtracted from subport S,
550subport S traffic class TC, pipe P, pipe P traffic class TC.
551
552Framing Overhead
553""""""""""""""""
554
555As the greatest common divisor for all packet lengths is one byte, the unit of credit is selected as one byte.
556The number of credits required for the transmission of a packet of n bytes is equal to (n+h),
557where h is equal to the number of framing overhead bytes per packet.
558
559.. _table_qos_5:
560
561.. table:: Ethernet Frame Overhead Fields
562
563   +---+--------------------------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
564   | # | Packet field                   | Length (bytes) | Comments                                                                  |
565   |   |                                |                |                                                                           |
566   +===+================================+================+===========================================================================+
567   | 1 | Preamble                       | 7              |                                                                           |
568   |   |                                |                |                                                                           |
569   +---+--------------------------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
570   | 2 | Start of Frame Delimiter (SFD) | 1              |                                                                           |
571   |   |                                |                |                                                                           |
572   +---+--------------------------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
573   | 3 | Frame Check Sequence (FCS)     | 4              | Considered overhead only if not included in the mbuf packet length field. |
574   |   |                                |                |                                                                           |
575   +---+--------------------------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
576   | 4 | Inter Frame Gap (IFG)          | 12             |                                                                           |
577   |   |                                |                |                                                                           |
578   +---+--------------------------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
579   | 5 | Total                          | 24             |                                                                           |
580   |   |                                |                |                                                                           |
581   +---+--------------------------------+----------------+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
582
583Traffic Shaping
584"""""""""""""""
585
586The traffic shaping for subport and pipe is implemented using a token bucket per subport/per pipe.
587Each token bucket is implemented using one saturated counter that keeps track of the number of available credits.
588
589The token bucket generic parameters and operations are presented in :numref:`table_qos_6` and :numref:`table_qos_7`.
590
591.. _table_qos_6:
592
593.. table:: Token Bucket Generic Parameters
594
595   +---+------------------------+--------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
596   | # | Token Bucket Parameter | Unit               | Description                                             |
597   |   |                        |                    |                                                         |
598   +===+========================+====================+=========================================================+
599   | 1 | bucket_rate            | Credits per second | Rate of adding credits to the bucket.                   |
600   |   |                        |                    |                                                         |
601   +---+------------------------+--------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
602   | 2 | bucket_size            | Credits            | Max number of credits that can be stored in the bucket. |
603   |   |                        |                    |                                                         |
604   +---+------------------------+--------------------+---------------------------------------------------------+
605
606.. _table_qos_7:
607
608.. table:: Token Bucket Generic Operations
609
610   +---+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
611   | # | Token Bucket Operation | Description                                                                  |
612   |   |                        |                                                                              |
613   +===+========================+==============================================================================+
614   | 1 | Initialization         | Bucket set to a predefined value, e.g. zero or half of the bucket size.      |
615   |   |                        |                                                                              |
616   +---+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
617   | 2 | Credit update          | Credits are added to the bucket on top of existing ones, either periodically |
618   |   |                        | or on demand, based on the bucket_rate. Credits cannot exceed the upper      |
619   |   |                        | limit defined by the bucket_size, so any credits to be added to the bucket   |
620   |   |                        | while the bucket is full are dropped.                                        |
621   |   |                        |                                                                              |
622   +---+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
623   | 3 | Credit consumption     | As result of packet scheduling, the necessary number of credits is removed   |
624   |   |                        | from the bucket. The packet can only be sent if enough credits are in the    |
625   |   |                        | bucket to send the full packet (packet bytes and framing overhead for the    |
626   |   |                        | packet).                                                                     |
627   |   |                        |                                                                              |
628   +---+------------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
629
630To implement the token bucket generic operations described above,
631the current design uses the persistent data structure presented in :numref:`table_qos_8`,
632while the implementation of the token bucket operations is described in :numref:`table_qos_9`.
633
634.. _table_qos_8:
635
636.. table:: Token Bucket Persistent Data Structure
637
638   +---+------------------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
639   | # | Token bucket field     | Unit  | Description                                                          |
640   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
641   +===+========================+=======+======================================================================+
642   | 1 | tb_time                | Bytes | Time of the last credit update. Measured in bytes instead of seconds |
643   |   |                        |       | or CPU cycles for ease of credit consumption operation               |
644   |   |                        |       | (as the current time is also maintained in bytes).                   |
645   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
646   |   |                        |       | See  Section 26.2.4.5.1 "Internal Time Reference" for an             |
647   |   |                        |       | explanation of why the time is maintained in byte units.             |
648   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
649   +---+------------------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
650   | 2 | tb_period              | Bytes | Time period that should elapse since the last credit update in order |
651   |   |                        |       | for the bucket to be awarded tb_credits_per_period worth or credits. |
652   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
653   +---+------------------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
654   | 3 | tb_credits_per_period  | Bytes | Credit allowance per tb_period.                                      |
655   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
656   +---+------------------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
657   | 4 | tb_size                | Bytes | Bucket size, i.e. upper limit for the tb_credits.                    |
658   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
659   +---+------------------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
660   | 5 | tb_credits             | Bytes | Number of credits currently in the bucket.                           |
661   |   |                        |       |                                                                      |
662   +---+------------------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------+
663
664The bucket rate (in bytes per second) can be computed with the following formula:
665
666*bucket_rate = (tb_credits_per_period / tb_period) * r*
667
668where, r = port line rate (in bytes per second).
669
670.. _table_qos_9:
671
672.. table:: Token Bucket Operations
673
674   +---+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
675   | # | Token bucket operation  | Description                                                                 |
676   |   |                         |                                                                             |
677   +===+=========================+=============================================================================+
678   | 1 | Initialization          | *tb_credits = 0; or tb_credits = tb_size / 2;*                              |
679   |   |                         |                                                                             |
680   +---+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
681   | 2 | Credit update           | Credit update options:                                                      |
682   |   |                         |                                                                             |
683   |   |                         | *   Every time a packet is sent for a port, update the credits of all the   |
684   |   |                         |     the subports and pipes of that port. Not feasible.                      |
685   |   |                         |                                                                             |
686   |   |                         | *   Every time a packet is sent, update the credits for the pipe and        |
687   |   |                         |     subport. Very accurate, but not needed (a lot of calculations).         |
688   |   |                         |                                                                             |
689   |   |                         | *   Every time a pipe is selected (that is, picked by one                   |
690   |   |                         |     of the grinders), update the credits for the pipe and its subport.      |
691   |   |                         |                                                                             |
692   |   |                         | The current implementation is using option 3.  According to Section         |
693   |   |                         | `Dequeue State Machine`_, the pipe and subport credits are                  |
694   |   |                         | updated every time a pipe is selected by the dequeue process before the     |
695   |   |                         | pipe and subport credits are actually used.                                 |
696   |   |                         |                                                                             |
697   |   |                         | The implementation uses a tradeoff between accuracy and speed by updating   |
698   |   |                         | the bucket credits only when at least a full *tb_period*  has elapsed since |
699   |   |                         | the last update.                                                            |
700   |   |                         |                                                                             |
701   |   |                         | *   Full accuracy can be achieved by selecting the value for *tb_period*    |
702   |   |                         |     for which  *tb_credits_per_period = 1*.                                 |
703   |   |                         |                                                                             |
704   |   |                         | *   When full accuracy is not required, better performance is achieved by   |
705   |   |                         |     setting *tb_credits* to a larger value.                                 |
706   |   |                         |                                                                             |
707   |   |                         | Update operations:                                                          |
708   |   |                         |                                                                             |
709   |   |                         | *   n_periods = (time - tb_time) / tb_period;                               |
710   |   |                         |                                                                             |
711   |   |                         | *   tb_credits += n_periods * tb_credits_per_period;                        |
712   |   |                         |                                                                             |
713   |   |                         | *   tb_credits = min(tb_credits, tb_size);                                  |
714   |   |                         |                                                                             |
715   |   |                         | *   tb_time += n_periods * tb_period;                                       |
716   |   |                         |                                                                             |
717   +---+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
718   | 3 | Credit consumption      | As result of packet scheduling, the necessary number of credits is removed  |
719   |   |  (on packet scheduling) | from the bucket. The packet can only be sent if enough credits are in the   |
720   |   |                         | bucket to send the full packet (packet bytes and framing overhead for the   |
721   |   |                         | packet).                                                                    |
722   |   |                         |                                                                             |
723   |   |                         | Scheduling operations:                                                      |
724   |   |                         |                                                                             |
725   |   |                         | pkt_credits = pkt_len + frame_overhead;                                     |
726   |   |                         | if (tb_credits >= pkt_credits){tb_credits -= pkt_credits;}                  |
727   |   |                         |                                                                             |
728   +---+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
729
730Traffic Classes
731"""""""""""""""
732
733Implementation of Strict Priority Scheduling
734''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
735
736Strict priority scheduling of traffic classes within the same pipe is implemented by the pipe dequeue state machine,
737which selects the queues in ascending order.
738Therefore, queue 0 (associated with TC 0, highest priority TC) is handled before
739queue 1 (TC 1, lower priority than TC 0),
740which is handled before queue 2 (TC 2, lower priority than TC 1) and it conitnues until queues of all TCs except the
741lowest priority TC are handled. At last, queues 12..15 (best effort TC, lowest priority TC) are handled.
742
743Upper Limit Enforcement
744'''''''''''''''''''''''
745
746The traffic classes at the pipe and subport levels are not traffic shaped,
747so there is no token bucket maintained in this context.
748The upper limit for the traffic classes at the subport and
749pipe levels is enforced by periodically refilling the subport / pipe traffic class credit counter,
750out of which credits are consumed every time a packet is scheduled for that subport / pipe,
751as described in :numref:`table_qos_10` and :numref:`table_qos_11`.
752
753.. _table_qos_10:
754
755.. table:: Subport/Pipe Traffic Class Upper Limit Enforcement Persistent Data Structure
756
757   +---+-----------------------+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
758   | # | Subport or pipe field | Unit  | Description                                                           |
759   |   |                       |       |                                                                       |
760   +===+=======================+=======+=======================================================================+
761   | 1 | tc_time               | Bytes | Time of the next update (upper limit refill) for the TCs of the       |
762   |   |                       |       | current subport / pipe.                                               |
763   |   |                       |       |                                                                       |
764   |   |                       |       | See  Section `Internal Time Reference`_ for the                       |
765   |   |                       |       | explanation of why the time is maintained in byte units.              |
766   |   |                       |       |                                                                       |
767   +---+-----------------------+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
768   | 2 | tc_period             | Bytes | Time between two consecutive updates for the all TCs of the current   |
769   |   |                       |       | subport / pipe. This is expected to be many times bigger than the     |
770   |   |                       |       | typical value of the token bucket tb_period.                          |
771   |   |                       |       |                                                                       |
772   +---+-----------------------+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
773   | 3 | tc_credits_per_period | Bytes | Upper limit for the number of credits allowed to be consumed by the   |
774   |   |                       |       | current TC during each enforcement period tc_period.                  |
775   |   |                       |       |                                                                       |
776   +---+-----------------------+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
777   | 4 | tc_credits            | Bytes | Current upper limit for the number of credits that can be consumed by |
778   |   |                       |       | the current traffic class for the remainder of the current            |
779   |   |                       |       | enforcement period.                                                   |
780   |   |                       |       |                                                                       |
781   +---+-----------------------+-------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
782
783.. _table_qos_11:
784
785.. table:: Subport/Pipe Traffic Class Upper Limit Enforcement Operations
786
787   +---+--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
788   | # | Traffic Class Operation  | Description                                                                |
789   |   |                          |                                                                            |
790   +===+==========================+============================================================================+
791   | 1 | Initialization           | tc_credits = tc_credits_per_period;                                        |
792   |   |                          |                                                                            |
793   |   |                          | tc_time = tc_period;                                                       |
794   |   |                          |                                                                            |
795   +---+--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
796   | 2 | Credit update            | Update operations:                                                         |
797   |   |                          |                                                                            |
798   |   |                          | if (time >= tc_time) {                                                     |
799   |   |                          |                                                                            |
800   |   |                          | tc_credits = tc_credits_per_period;                                        |
801   |   |                          |                                                                            |
802   |   |                          | tc_time = time + tc_period;                                                |
803   |   |                          |                                                                            |
804   |   |                          | }                                                                          |
805   |   |                          |                                                                            |
806   +---+--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
807   | 3 | Credit consumption       | As result of packet scheduling, the TC limit is decreased with the         |
808   |   | (on packet scheduling)   | necessary number of credits. The packet can only be sent if enough credits |
809   |   |                          | are currently available in the TC limit to send the full packet            |
810   |   |                          | (packet bytes and framing overhead for the packet).                        |
811   |   |                          |                                                                            |
812   |   |                          | Scheduling operations:                                                     |
813   |   |                          |                                                                            |
814   |   |                          | pkt_credits = pk_len + frame_overhead;                                     |
815   |   |                          |                                                                            |
816   |   |                          | if (tc_credits >= pkt_credits) {tc_credits -= pkt_credits;}                |
817   |   |                          |                                                                            |
818   +---+--------------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
819
820Weighted Round Robin (WRR)
821""""""""""""""""""""""""""
822
823The evolution of the WRR design solution for the lowest priority traffic class (best effort TC) from simple to complex is shown in :numref:`table_qos_12`.
824
825.. _table_qos_12:
826
827.. table:: Weighted Round Robin (WRR)
828
829   +---+------------+-----------------+-------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
830   | # | All Queues | Equal Weights   | All Packets | Strategy                                                 |
831   |   | Active?    | for All Queues? | Equal?      |                                                          |
832   +===+============+=================+=============+==========================================================+
833   | 1 | Yes        | Yes             | Yes         | **Byte level round robin**                               |
834   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
835   |   |            |                 |             | *Next queue*  queue #i, i =  *(i + 1) % n*               |
836   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
837   +---+------------+-----------------+-------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
838   | 2 | Yes        | Yes             | No          | **Packet level round robin**                             |
839   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
840   |   |            |                 |             | Consuming one byte from queue #i requires consuming      |
841   |   |            |                 |             | exactly one token for queue #i.                          |
842   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
843   |   |            |                 |             | T(i) = Accumulated number of tokens previously consumed  |
844   |   |            |                 |             | from queue #i. Every time a packet is consumed from      |
845   |   |            |                 |             | queue #i, T(i) is updated as: T(i) += *pkt_len*.         |
846   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
847   |   |            |                 |             | *Next queue* : queue with the smallest T.                |
848   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
849   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
850   +---+------------+-----------------+-------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
851   | 3 | Yes        | No              | No          | **Packet level weighted round robin**                    |
852   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
853   |   |            |                 |             | This case can be reduced to the previous case by         |
854   |   |            |                 |             | introducing a cost per byte that is different for each   |
855   |   |            |                 |             | queue. Queues with lower weights have a higher cost per  |
856   |   |            |                 |             | byte. This way, it is still meaningful to compare the    |
857   |   |            |                 |             | consumption amongst different queues in order to select  |
858   |   |            |                 |             | the next queue.                                          |
859   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
860   |   |            |                 |             | w(i) = Weight of queue #i                                |
861   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
862   |   |            |                 |             | t(i) = Tokens per byte for queue #i, defined as the      |
863   |   |            |                 |             | inverse weight of queue #i.                              |
864   |   |            |                 |             | For example, if w[0..3] = [1:2:4:8],                     |
865   |   |            |                 |             | then t[0..3] = [8:4:2:1]; if w[0..3] = [1:4:15:20],      |
866   |   |            |                 |             | then t[0..3] = [60:15:4:3].                              |
867   |   |            |                 |             | Consuming one byte from queue #i requires consuming t(i) |
868   |   |            |                 |             | tokens for queue #i.                                     |
869   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
870   |   |            |                 |             | T(i) = Accumulated number of tokens previously consumed  |
871   |   |            |                 |             | from queue #i. Every time a packet is consumed from      |
872   |   |            |                 |             | queue #i, T(i) is updated as:  *T(i) += pkt_len * t(i)*. |
873   |   |            |                 |             | *Next queue* : queue with the smallest T.                |
874   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
875   +---+------------+-----------------+-------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
876   | 4 | No         | No              | No          | **Packet level weighted round robin with variable queue  |
877   |   |            |                 |             | status**                                                 |
878   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
879   |   |            |                 |             | Reduce this case to the previous case by setting the     |
880   |   |            |                 |             | consumption of inactive queues to a high number, so that |
881   |   |            |                 |             | the inactive queues will never be selected by the        |
882   |   |            |                 |             | smallest T logic.                                        |
883   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
884   |   |            |                 |             | To prevent T from overflowing as result of successive    |
885   |   |            |                 |             | accumulations, T(i) is truncated after each packet       |
886   |   |            |                 |             | consumption for all queues.                              |
887   |   |            |                 |             | For example, T[0..3] = [1000, 1100, 1200, 1300]          |
888   |   |            |                 |             | is truncated to T[0..3] = [0, 100, 200, 300]             |
889   |   |            |                 |             | by subtracting the min T from T(i), i = 0..n.            |
890   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
891   |   |            |                 |             | This requires having at least one active queue in the    |
892   |   |            |                 |             | set of input queues, which is guaranteed by the dequeue  |
893   |   |            |                 |             | state machine never selecting an inactive traffic class. |
894   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
895   |   |            |                 |             | *mask(i) = Saturation mask for queue #i, defined as:*    |
896   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
897   |   |            |                 |             | mask(i) = (queue #i is active)? 0 : 0xFFFFFFFF;          |
898   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
899   |   |            |                 |             | w(i) = Weight of queue #i                                |
900   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
901   |   |            |                 |             | t(i) = Tokens per byte for queue #i, defined as the      |
902   |   |            |                 |             | inverse weight of queue #i.                              |
903   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
904   |   |            |                 |             | T(i) = Accumulated numbers of tokens previously consumed |
905   |   |            |                 |             | from queue #i.                                           |
906   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
907   |   |            |                 |             | *Next queue*  : queue with smallest T.                   |
908   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
909   |   |            |                 |             | Before packet consumption from queue #i:                 |
910   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
911   |   |            |                 |             | *T(i) |= mask(i)*                                        |
912   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
913   |   |            |                 |             | After packet consumption from queue #i:                  |
914   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
915   |   |            |                 |             | T(j) -= T(i), j != i                                     |
916   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
917   |   |            |                 |             | T(i) = pkt_len * t(i)                                    |
918   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
919   |   |            |                 |             | Note: T(j) uses the T(i) value before T(i) is updated.   |
920   |   |            |                 |             |                                                          |
921   +---+------------+-----------------+-------------+----------------------------------------------------------+
922
923Subport Traffic Class Oversubscription
924""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
925
926Problem Statement
927'''''''''''''''''
928
929Oversubscription for subport traffic class X is a configuration-time event that occurs when
930more bandwidth is allocated for traffic class X at the level of subport member pipes than
931allocated for the same traffic class at the parent subport level.
932
933The existence of the oversubscription for a specific subport and
934traffic class is solely the result of pipe and
935subport-level configuration as opposed to being created due
936to dynamic evolution of the traffic load at run-time (as congestion is).
937
938When the overall demand for traffic class X for the current subport is low,
939the existence of the oversubscription condition does not represent a problem,
940as demand for traffic class X is completely satisfied for all member pipes.
941However, this can no longer be achieved when the aggregated demand for traffic class X
942for all subport member pipes exceeds the limit configured at the subport level.
943
944Solution Space
945''''''''''''''
946
947summarizes some of the possible approaches for handling this problem,
948with the third approach selected for implementation.
949
950.. _table_qos_13:
951
952.. table:: Subport Traffic Class Oversubscription
953
954   +-----+---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
955   | No. | Approach                  | Description                                                             |
956   |     |                           |                                                                         |
957   +=====+===========================+=========================================================================+
958   | 1   | Don't care                | First come, first served.                                               |
959   |     |                           |                                                                         |
960   |     |                           | This approach is not fair amongst subport member pipes, as pipes that   |
961   |     |                           | are served first will use up as much bandwidth for TC X as they need,   |
962   |     |                           | while pipes that are served later will receive poor service due to      |
963   |     |                           | bandwidth for TC X at the subport level being scarce.                   |
964   |     |                           |                                                                         |
965   +-----+---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
966   | 2   | Scale down all pipes      | All pipes within the subport have their bandwidth limit for TC X scaled |
967   |     |                           | down by the same factor.                                                |
968   |     |                           |                                                                         |
969   |     |                           | This approach is not fair among subport member pipes, as the low end    |
970   |     |                           | pipes (that is, pipes configured with low bandwidth) can potentially    |
971   |     |                           | experience severe service degradation that might render their service   |
972   |     |                           | unusable (if available bandwidth for these pipes drops below the        |
973   |     |                           | minimum requirements for a workable service), while the service         |
974   |     |                           | degradation for high end pipes might not be noticeable at all.          |
975   |     |                           |                                                                         |
976   +-----+---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
977   | 3   | Cap the high demand pipes | Each subport member pipe receives an equal share of the bandwidth       |
978   |     |                           | available at run-time for TC X at the subport level. Any bandwidth left |
979   |     |                           | unused by the low-demand pipes is redistributed in equal portions to    |
980   |     |                           | the high-demand pipes. This way, the high-demand pipes are truncated    |
981   |     |                           | while the low-demand pipes are not impacted.                            |
982   |     |                           |                                                                         |
983   +-----+---------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
984
985Typically, the subport TC oversubscription feature is enabled only for the lowest priority traffic class,
986which is typically used for best effort traffic,
987with the management plane preventing this condition from occurring for the other (higher priority) traffic classes.
988
989To ease implementation, it is also assumed that the upper limit for subport best effort TC is set to 100% of the subport rate,
990and that the upper limit for pipe best effort TC is set to 100% of pipe rate for all subport member pipes.
991
992Implementation Overview
993'''''''''''''''''''''''
994
995The algorithm computes a watermark, which is periodically updated based on the current demand experienced by the subport member pipes,
996whose purpose is to limit the amount of traffic that each pipe is allowed to send for best effort TC.
997The watermark is computed at the subport level at the beginning of each traffic class upper limit enforcement period and
998the same value is used by all the subport member pipes throughout the current enforcement period.
999illustrates how the watermark computed as subport level at the beginning of each period is propagated to all subport member pipes.
1000
1001At the beginning of the current enforcement period (which coincides with the end of the previous enforcement period),
1002the value of the watermark is adjusted based on the amount of bandwidth allocated to best effort TC at the beginning of the previous period that
1003was not left unused by the subport member pipes at the end of the previous period.
1004
1005If there was subport best effort TC bandwidth left unused,
1006the value of the watermark for the current period is increased to encourage the subport member pipes to consume more bandwidth.
1007Otherwise, the value of the watermark is decreased to enforce equality of bandwidth consumption among subport member pipes for best effort TC.
1008
1009The increase or decrease in the watermark value is done in small increments,
1010so several enforcement periods might be required to reach the equilibrium state.
1011This state can change at any moment due to variations in the demand experienced by the subport member pipes for best effort TC, for example,
1012as a result of demand increase (when the watermark needs to be lowered) or demand decrease (when the watermark needs to be increased).
1013
1014When demand is low, the watermark is set high to prevent it from impeding the subport member pipes from consuming more bandwidth.
1015The highest value for the watermark is picked as the highest rate configured for a subport member pipe.
1016:numref:`table_qos_14` and :numref:`table_qos_15` illustrates the watermark operation.
1017
1018.. _table_qos_14:
1019
1020.. table:: Watermark Propagation from Subport Level to Member Pipes at the Beginning of Each Traffic Class Upper Limit Enforcement Period
1021
1022   +-----+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
1023   | No. | Subport Traffic Class Operation | Description                                        |
1024   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1025   +=====+=================================+====================================================+
1026   | 1   | Initialization                  | **Subport level**: subport_period_id= 0            |
1027   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1028   |     |                                 | **Pipe level**: pipe_period_id = 0                 |
1029   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1030   +-----+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
1031   | 2   | Credit update                   | **Subport Level**:                                 |
1032   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1033   |     |                                 | if (time>=subport_tc_time)                         |
1034   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1035   |     |                                 | {                                                  |
1036   |     |                                 |     subport_wm = water_mark_update();              |
1037   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1038   |     |                                 |     subport_tc_time = time + subport_tc_period;    |
1039   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1040   |     |                                 |     subport_period_id++;                           |
1041   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1042   |     |                                 | }                                                  |
1043   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1044   |     |                                 | **Pipelevel:**                                     |
1045   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1046   |     |                                 | if(pipe_period_id != subport_period_id)            |
1047   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1048   |     |                                 | {                                                  |
1049   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1050   |     |                                 |     pipe_ov_credits = subport_wm \* pipe_weight;   |
1051   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1052   |     |                                 |     pipe_period_id = subport_period_id;            |
1053   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1054   |     |                                 | }                                                  |
1055   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1056   +-----+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
1057   | 3   | Credit consumption              | **Pipe level:**                                    |
1058   |     | (on packet scheduling)          |                                                    |
1059   |     |                                 | pkt_credits = pk_len + frame_overhead;             |
1060   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1061   |     |                                 | if(pipe_ov_credits >= pkt_credits{                 |
1062   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1063   |     |                                 |    pipe_ov_credits -= pkt_credits;                 |
1064   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1065   |     |                                 | }                                                  |
1066   |     |                                 |                                                    |
1067   +-----+---------------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+
1068
1069.. _table_qos_15:
1070
1071.. table:: Watermark Calculation
1072
1073   +-----+------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1074   | No. | Subport Traffic  | Description                                                                      |
1075   |     | Class Operation  |                                                                                  |
1076   +=====+==================+==================================================================================+
1077   | 1   | Initialization   | **Subport level:**                                                               |
1078   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1079   |     |                  | wm = WM_MAX                                                                      |
1080   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1081   +-----+------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1082   | 2   | Credit update    | **Subport level (water_mark_update):**                                           |
1083   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1084   |     |                  | tc0_cons = subport_tc0_credits_per_period - subport_tc0_credits;                 |
1085   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1086   |     |                  | tc1_cons = subport_tc1_credits_per_period - subport_tc1_credits;                 |
1087   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1088   |     |                  | tc2_cons = subport_tc2_credits_per_period - subport_tc2_credits;                 |
1089   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1090   |     |                  | tc3_cons = subport_tc3_credits_per_period - subport_tc3_credits;                 |
1091   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1092   |     |                  | tc4_cons = subport_tc4_credits_per_period - subport_tc4_credits;                 |
1093   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1094   |     |                  | tc5_cons = subport_tc5_credits_per_period - subport_tc5_credits;                 |
1095   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1096   |     |                  | tc6_cons = subport_tc6_credits_per_period - subport_tc6_credits;                 |
1097   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1098   |     |                  | tc7_cons = subport_tc7_credits_per_period - subport_tc7_credits;                 |
1099   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1100   |     |                  | tc8_cons = subport_tc8_credits_per_period - subport_tc8_credits;                 |
1101   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1102   |     |                  | tc9_cons = subport_tc9_credits_per_period - subport_tc9_credits;                 |
1103   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1104   |     |                  | tc10_cons = subport_tc10_credits_per_period - subport_tc10_credits;              |
1105   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1106   |     |                  | tc11_cons = subport_tc11_credits_per_period - subport_tc11_credits;              |
1107   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1108   |     |                  | tc_be_cons_max = subport_tc_be_credits_per_period - (tc0_cons + tc1_cons +       |
1109   |     |                  | tc2_cons + tc3_cons + tc4_cons + tc5_cons + tc6_cons + tc7_cons + tc8_cons +     |
1110   |     |                  | tc9_cons + tc10_cons + tc11_cons);                                               |
1111   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1112   |     |                  | if(tc_be_consumption > (tc_be_consumption_max - MTU)){                           |
1113   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1114   |     |                  |     wm -= wm >> 7;                                                               |
1115   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1116   |     |                  |     if(wm < WM_MIN) wm =  WM_MIN;                                                |
1117   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1118   |     |                  | } else {                                                                         |
1119   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1120   |     |                  |    wm += (wm >> 7) + 1;                                                          |
1121   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1122   |     |                  |    if(wm > WM_MAX) wm = WM_MAX;                                                  |
1123   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1124   |     |                  | }                                                                                |
1125   |     |                  |                                                                                  |
1126   +-----+------------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1127
1128Worst Case Scenarios for Performance
1129~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1130
1131Lots of Active Queues with Not Enough Credits
1132^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1133
1134The more queues the scheduler has to examine for packets and credits in order to select one packet,
1135the lower the performance of the scheduler is.
1136
1137The scheduler maintains the bitmap of active queues, which skips the non-active queues,
1138but in order to detect whether a specific pipe has enough credits,
1139the pipe has to be drilled down using the pipe dequeue state machine,
1140which consumes cycles regardless of the scheduling result
1141(no packets are produced or at least one packet is produced).
1142
1143This scenario stresses the importance of the policer for the scheduler performance:
1144if the pipe does not have enough credits,
1145its packets should be dropped as soon as possible (before they reach the hierarchical scheduler),
1146thus rendering the pipe queues as not active,
1147which allows the dequeue side to skip that pipe with no cycles being spent on investigating the pipe credits
1148that would result in a "not enough credits" status.
1149
1150Single Queue with 100% Line Rate
1151^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1152
1153The port scheduler performance is optimized for a large number of queues.
1154If the number of queues is small,
1155then the performance of the port scheduler for the same level of active traffic is expected to be worse than
1156the performance of a small set of message passing queues.
1157
1158.. _Dropper:
1159
1160Dropper
1161-------
1162
1163The purpose of the DPDK dropper is to drop packets arriving at a packet scheduler to avoid congestion.
1164The dropper supports the Random Early Detection (RED),
1165Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED) and tail drop algorithms.
1166:numref:`figure_blk_diag_dropper` illustrates how the dropper integrates with the scheduler.
1167The DPDK currently does not support congestion management
1168so the dropper provides the only method for congestion avoidance.
1169
1170.. _figure_blk_diag_dropper:
1171
1172.. figure:: img/blk_diag_dropper.*
1173
1174   High-level Block Diagram of the DPDK Dropper
1175
1176
1177The dropper uses the Random Early Detection (RED) congestion avoidance algorithm as documented in the reference publication.
1178The purpose of the RED algorithm is to monitor a packet queue,
1179determine the current congestion level in the queue and decide whether an arriving packet should be enqueued or dropped.
1180The RED algorithm uses an Exponential Weighted Moving Average (EWMA) filter to compute average queue size which
1181gives an indication of the current congestion level in the queue.
1182
1183For each enqueue operation, the RED algorithm compares the average queue size to minimum and maximum thresholds.
1184Depending on whether the average queue size is below, above or in between these thresholds,
1185the RED algorithm calculates the probability that an arriving packet should be dropped and
1186makes a random decision based on this probability.
1187
1188The dropper also supports Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED) by allowing the scheduler to select
1189different RED configurations for the same packet queue at run-time.
1190In the case of severe congestion, the dropper resorts to tail drop.
1191This occurs when a packet queue has reached maximum capacity and cannot store any more packets.
1192In this situation, all arriving packets are dropped.
1193
1194The flow through the dropper is illustrated in :numref:`figure_flow_tru_droppper`.
1195The RED/WRED algorithm is exercised first and tail drop second.
1196
1197.. _figure_flow_tru_droppper:
1198
1199.. figure:: img/flow_tru_droppper.*
1200
1201   Flow Through the Dropper
1202
1203
1204The use cases supported by the dropper are:
1205
1206*   *    Initialize configuration data
1207
1208*   *    Initialize run-time data
1209
1210*   *    Enqueue (make a decision to enqueue or drop an arriving packet)
1211
1212*   *    Mark empty (record the time at which a packet queue becomes empty)
1213
1214The configuration use case is explained in :ref:`Section2.23.3.1 <Configuration>`,
1215the enqueue operation is explained in  :ref:`Section 2.23.3.2 <Enqueue_Operation>`
1216and the mark empty operation is explained in :ref:`Section 2.23.3.3 <Queue_Empty_Operation>`.
1217
1218.. _Configuration:
1219
1220Configuration
1221~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1222
1223A RED configuration contains the parameters given in :numref:`table_qos_16`.
1224
1225.. _table_qos_16:
1226
1227.. table:: RED Configuration Parameters
1228
1229   +--------------------------+---------+---------+------------------+
1230   | Parameter                | Minimum | Maximum | Typical          |
1231   |                          |         |         |                  |
1232   +==========================+=========+=========+==================+
1233   | Minimum Threshold        | 0       | 1022    | 1/4 x queue size |
1234   |                          |         |         |                  |
1235   +--------------------------+---------+---------+------------------+
1236   | Maximum Threshold        | 1       | 1023    | 1/2 x queue size |
1237   |                          |         |         |                  |
1238   +--------------------------+---------+---------+------------------+
1239   | Inverse Mark Probability | 1       | 255     | 10               |
1240   |                          |         |         |                  |
1241   +--------------------------+---------+---------+------------------+
1242   | EWMA Filter Weight       | 1       | 12      | 9                |
1243   |                          |         |         |                  |
1244   +--------------------------+---------+---------+------------------+
1245
1246The meaning of these parameters is explained in more detail in the following sections.
1247The format of these parameters as specified to the dropper module API
1248corresponds to the format used by Cisco* in their RED implementation.
1249The minimum and maximum threshold parameters are specified to the dropper module in terms of number of packets.
1250The mark probability parameter is specified as an inverse value, for example,
1251an inverse mark probability parameter value of 10 corresponds
1252to a mark probability of 1/10 (that is, 1 in 10 packets will be dropped).
1253The EWMA filter weight parameter is specified as an inverse log value,
1254for example, a filter weight parameter value of 9 corresponds to a filter weight of 1/29.
1255
1256.. _Enqueue_Operation:
1257
1258Enqueue Operation
1259~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1260
1261In the example shown in :numref:`figure_ex_data_flow_tru_dropper`, q (actual queue size) is the input value,
1262avg (average queue size) and count (number of packets since the last drop) are run-time values,
1263decision is the output value and the remaining values are configuration parameters.
1264
1265.. _figure_ex_data_flow_tru_dropper:
1266
1267.. figure:: img/ex_data_flow_tru_dropper.*
1268
1269   Example Data Flow Through Dropper
1270
1271
1272EWMA Filter Microblock
1273^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1274
1275The purpose of the EWMA Filter microblock is to filter queue size values to smooth out transient changes
1276that result from "bursty" traffic.
1277The output value is the average queue size which gives a more stable view of the current congestion level in the queue.
1278
1279The EWMA filter has one configuration parameter, filter weight, which determines how quickly
1280or slowly the average queue size output responds to changes in the actual queue size input.
1281Higher values of filter weight mean that the average queue size responds more quickly to changes in actual queue size.
1282
1283Average Queue Size Calculation when the Queue is not Empty
1284""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
1285
1286The definition of the EWMA filter is given in the following equation.
1287
1288.. image:: img/ewma_filter_eq_1.*
1289
1290Where:
1291
1292*   *avg*  = average queue size
1293
1294*   *wq*   = filter weight
1295
1296*   *q*    = actual queue size
1297
1298.. note::
1299
1300    The filter weight, wq = 1/2^n, where n is the filter weight parameter value passed to the dropper module
1301	on configuration (see :ref:`Section2.23.3.1 <Configuration>` ).
1302
1303Average Queue Size Calculation when the Queue is Empty
1304^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1305
1306The EWMA filter does not read time stamps and instead assumes that enqueue operations will happen quite regularly.
1307Special handling is required when the queue becomes empty as the queue could be empty for a short time or a long time.
1308When the queue becomes empty, average queue size should decay gradually to zero instead of dropping suddenly to zero
1309or remaining stagnant at the last computed value.
1310When a packet is enqueued on an empty queue, the average queue size is computed using the following formula:
1311
1312.. image:: img/ewma_filter_eq_2.*
1313
1314Where:
1315
1316*   *m*   = the number of enqueue operations that could have occurred on this queue while the queue was empty
1317
1318In the dropper module, *m* is defined as:
1319
1320.. image:: img/m_definition.*
1321
1322Where:
1323
1324*   *time*  = current time
1325
1326*   *qtime* = time the queue became empty
1327
1328*   *s* = typical time between successive enqueue operations on this queue
1329
1330The time reference is in units of bytes,
1331where a byte signifies the time duration required by the physical interface to send out a byte on the transmission medium
1332(see Section `Internal Time Reference`_).
1333The parameter s is defined in the dropper module as a constant with the value: s=2^22.
1334This corresponds to the time required by every leaf node in a hierarchy with 64K leaf nodes
1335to transmit one 64-byte packet onto the wire and represents the worst case scenario.
1336For much smaller scheduler hierarchies,
1337it may be necessary to reduce the parameter s, which is defined in the red header source file (rte_red.h) as:
1338
1339.. code-block:: c
1340
1341    #define RTE_RED_S
1342
1343Since the time reference is in bytes, the port speed is implied in the expression: *time-qtime*.
1344The dropper does not have to be configured with the actual port speed.
1345It adjusts automatically to low speed and high speed links.
1346
1347Implementation
1348""""""""""""""
1349
1350A numerical method is used to compute the factor (1-wq)^m that appears in Equation 2.
1351
1352This method is based on the following identity:
1353
1354.. image:: img/eq2_factor.*
1355
1356
1357This allows us to express the following:
1358
1359.. image:: img/eq2_expression.*
1360
1361
1362In the dropper module, a look-up table is used to compute log2(1-wq) for each value of wq supported by the dropper module.
1363The factor (1-wq)^m can then be obtained by multiplying the table value by *m* and applying shift operations.
1364To avoid overflow in the multiplication, the value, *m*, and the look-up table values are limited to 16 bits.
1365The total size of the look-up table is 56 bytes.
1366Once the factor (1-wq)^m is obtained using this method, the average queue size can be calculated from Equation 2.
1367
1368Alternative Approaches
1369""""""""""""""""""""""
1370
1371Other methods for calculating the factor (1-wq)^m in the expression for computing average queue size
1372when the queue is empty (Equation 2) were considered.
1373These approaches include:
1374
1375*   Floating-point evaluation
1376
1377*   Fixed-point evaluation using a small look-up table (512B) and up to 16 multiplications
1378    (this is the approach used in the FreeBSD* ALTQ RED implementation)
1379
1380*   Fixed-point evaluation using a small look-up table (512B) and 16 SSE multiplications
1381    (SSE optimized version of the approach used in the FreeBSD* ALTQ RED implementation)
1382
1383*   Large look-up table (76 KB)
1384
1385The method that was finally selected (described above in Section 26.3.2.2.1) out performs all of these approaches
1386in terms of run-time performance and memory requirements and
1387also achieves accuracy comparable to floating-point evaluation.
1388:numref:`table_qos_17` lists the performance of each of these alternative approaches relative to the method that is used in the dropper.
1389As can be seen, the floating-point implementation achieved the worst performance.
1390
1391.. _table_qos_17:
1392
1393.. table:: Relative Performance of Alternative Approaches
1394
1395   +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
1396   | Method                                                                             | Relative Performance |
1397   |                                                                                    |                      |
1398   +====================================================================================+======================+
1399   | Current dropper method (see :ref:`Section 23.3.2.1.3 <Dropper>`)                   | 100%                 |
1400   |                                                                                    |                      |
1401   +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
1402   | Fixed-point method with small (512B) look-up table                                 | 148%                 |
1403   |                                                                                    |                      |
1404   +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
1405   | SSE method with small (512B) look-up table                                         | 114%                 |
1406   |                                                                                    |                      |
1407   +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
1408   | Large (76KB) look-up table                                                         | 118%                 |
1409   |                                                                                    |                      |
1410   +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
1411   | Floating-point                                                                     | 595%                 |
1412   |                                                                                    |                      |
1413   +------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----------------------+
1414   | **Note**: In this case, since performance is expressed as time spent executing the operation in a         |
1415   | specific condition, any relative performance value above 100% runs slower than the reference method.      |
1416   |                                                                                                           |
1417   +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
1418
1419Drop Decision Block
1420^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1421
1422The Drop Decision block:
1423
1424*   Compares the average queue size with the minimum and maximum thresholds
1425
1426*   Calculates a packet drop probability
1427
1428*   Makes a random decision to enqueue or drop an arriving packet
1429
1430The calculation of the drop probability occurs in two stages.
1431An initial drop probability is calculated based on the average queue size,
1432the minimum and maximum thresholds and the mark probability.
1433An actual drop probability is then computed from the initial drop probability.
1434The actual drop probability takes the count run-time value into consideration
1435so that the actual drop probability increases as more packets arrive to the packet queue
1436since the last packet was dropped.
1437
1438Initial Packet Drop Probability
1439"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
1440
1441The initial drop probability is calculated using the following equation.
1442
1443.. image:: img/drop_probability_eq3.*
1444
1445Where:
1446
1447*   *maxp*  = mark probability
1448
1449*   *avg*  = average queue size
1450
1451*   *minth*  = minimum threshold
1452
1453*   *maxth*  = maximum threshold
1454
1455The calculation of the packet drop probability using Equation 3 is illustrated in :numref:`figure_pkt_drop_probability`.
1456If the average queue size is below the minimum threshold, an arriving packet is enqueued.
1457If the average queue size is at or above the maximum threshold, an arriving packet is dropped.
1458If the average queue size is between the minimum and maximum thresholds,
1459a drop probability is calculated to determine if the packet should be enqueued or dropped.
1460
1461.. _figure_pkt_drop_probability:
1462
1463.. figure:: img/pkt_drop_probability.*
1464
1465   Packet Drop Probability for a Given RED Configuration
1466
1467
1468Actual Drop Probability
1469"""""""""""""""""""""""
1470
1471If the average queue size is between the minimum and maximum thresholds,
1472then the actual drop probability is calculated from the following equation.
1473
1474.. image:: img/drop_probability_eq4.*
1475
1476Where:
1477
1478*   *Pb*  = initial drop probability (from Equation 3)
1479
1480*   *count* = number of packets that have arrived since the last drop
1481
1482The constant 2, in Equation 4 is the only deviation from the drop probability formulae
1483given in the reference document where a value of 1 is used instead.
1484It should be noted that the value pa computed from can be negative or greater than 1.
1485If this is the case, then a value of 1 should be used instead.
1486
1487The initial and actual drop probabilities are shown in :numref:`figure_drop_probability_graph`.
1488The actual drop probability is shown for the case where
1489the formula given in the reference document1 is used (blue curve)
1490and also for the case where the formula implemented in the dropper module,
1491is used (red curve).
1492The formula in the reference document results in a significantly higher drop rate
1493compared to the mark probability configuration parameter specified by the user.
1494The choice to deviate from the reference document is simply a design decision and
1495one that has been taken by other RED implementations, for example, FreeBSD* ALTQ RED.
1496
1497.. _figure_drop_probability_graph:
1498
1499.. figure:: img/drop_probability_graph.*
1500
1501   Initial Drop Probability (pb), Actual Drop probability (pa) Computed Using
1502   a Factor 1 (Blue Curve) and a Factor 2 (Red Curve)
1503
1504
1505.. _Queue_Empty_Operation:
1506
1507Queue Empty Operation
1508~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1509
1510The time at which a packet queue becomes empty must be recorded and saved with the RED run-time data
1511so that the EWMA filter block can calculate the average queue size on the next enqueue operation.
1512It is the responsibility of the calling application to inform the dropper module
1513through the API that a queue has become empty.
1514
1515Source Files Location
1516~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1517
1518The source files for the DPDK dropper are located at:
1519
1520*   DPDK/lib/librte_sched/rte_red.h
1521
1522*   DPDK/lib/librte_sched/rte_red.c
1523
1524Integration with the DPDK QoS Scheduler
1525~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1526
1527RED functionality in the DPDK QoS scheduler is disabled by default.
1528The parameter is found in the build configuration files in the DPDK/config directory.
1529RED configuration parameters are specified in the rte_red_params structure within the rte_sched_port_params structure
1530that is passed to the scheduler on initialization.
1531RED parameters are specified separately for four traffic classes and three packet colors (green, yellow and red)
1532allowing the scheduler to implement Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED).
1533
1534Integration with the DPDK QoS Scheduler Sample Application
1535~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1536
1537The DPDK QoS Scheduler Application reads a configuration file on start-up.
1538The configuration file includes a section containing RED parameters.
1539The format of these parameters is described in :ref:`Section2.23.3.1 <Configuration>`.
1540A sample RED configuration is shown below. In this example, the queue size is 64 packets.
1541
1542.. note::
1543
1544    For correct operation, the same EWMA filter weight parameter (wred weight) should be used
1545    for each packet color (green, yellow, red) in the same traffic class (tc).
1546
1547::
1548
1549    ; RED params per traffic class and color (Green / Yellow / Red)
1550
1551   [red]
1552   tc 0 wred min = 28 22 16
1553   tc 0 wred max = 32 32 32
1554   tc 0 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1555   tc 0 wred weight = 9 9 9
1556
1557   tc 1 wred min = 28 22 16
1558   tc 1 wred max = 32 32 32
1559   tc 1 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1560   tc 1 wred weight = 9 9 9
1561
1562   tc 2 wred min = 28 22 16
1563   tc 2 wred max = 32 32 32
1564   tc 2 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1565   tc 2 wred weight = 9 9 9
1566
1567   tc 3 wred min = 28 22 16
1568   tc 3 wred max = 32 32 32
1569   tc 3 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1570   tc 3 wred weight = 9 9 9
1571
1572   tc 4 wred min = 28 22 16
1573   tc 4 wred max = 32 32 32
1574   tc 4 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1575   tc 4 wred weight = 9 9 9
1576
1577   tc 5 wred min = 28 22 16
1578   tc 5 wred max = 32 32 32
1579   tc 5 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1580   tc 5 wred weight = 9 9 9
1581
1582   tc 6 wred min = 28 22 16
1583   tc 6 wred max = 32 32 32
1584   tc 6 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1585   tc 6 wred weight = 9 9 9
1586
1587   tc 7 wred min = 28 22 16
1588   tc 7 wred max = 32 32 32
1589   tc 7 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1590   tc 7 wred weight = 9 9 9
1591
1592   tc 8 wred min = 28 22 16
1593   tc 8 wred max = 32 32 32
1594   tc 8 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1595   tc 8 wred weight = 9 9 9
1596
1597   tc 9 wred min = 28 22 16
1598   tc 9 wred max = 32 32 32
1599   tc 9 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1600   tc 9 wred weight = 9 9 9
1601
1602
1603   tc 10 wred min = 28 22 16
1604   tc 10 wred max = 32 32 32
1605   tc 10 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1606   tc 10 wred weight = 9 9 9
1607
1608   tc 11 wred min = 28 22 16
1609   tc 11 wred max = 32 32 32
1610   tc 11 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1611   tc 11 wred weight = 9 9 9
1612
1613   tc 12 wred min = 28 22 16
1614   tc 12 wred max = 32 32 32
1615   tc 12 wred inv prob = 10 10 10
1616   tc 12 wred weight = 9 9 9
1617
1618With this configuration file, the RED configuration that applies to green,
1619yellow and red packets in traffic class 0 is shown in :numref:`table_qos_18`.
1620
1621.. _table_qos_18:
1622
1623.. table:: RED Configuration Corresponding to RED Configuration File
1624
1625   +--------------------+--------------------+-------+--------+-----+
1626   | RED Parameter      | Configuration Name | Green | Yellow | Red |
1627   |                    |                    |       |        |     |
1628   +====================+====================+=======+========+=====+
1629   | Minimum Threshold  | tc 0 wred min      | 28    | 22     | 16  |
1630   |                    |                    |       |        |     |
1631   +--------------------+--------------------+-------+--------+-----+
1632   | Maximum Threshold  | tc 0 wred max      | 32    | 32     | 32  |
1633   |                    |                    |       |        |     |
1634   +--------------------+--------------------+-------+--------+-----+
1635   | Mark Probability   | tc 0 wred inv prob | 10    | 10     | 10  |
1636   |                    |                    |       |        |     |
1637   +--------------------+--------------------+-------+--------+-----+
1638   | EWMA Filter Weight | tc 0 wred weight   | 9     | 9      | 9   |
1639   |                    |                    |       |        |     |
1640   +--------------------+--------------------+-------+--------+-----+
1641
1642Application Programming Interface (API)
1643~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1644
1645Enqueue API
1646^^^^^^^^^^^
1647
1648The syntax of the enqueue API is as follows:
1649
1650.. code-block:: c
1651
1652   int rte_red_enqueue(const struct rte_red_config *red_cfg, struct rte_red *red, const unsigned q, const uint64_t time)
1653
1654
1655The arguments passed to the enqueue API are configuration data, run-time data,
1656the current size of the packet queue (in packets) and a value representing the current time.
1657The time reference is in units of bytes,
1658where a byte signifies the time duration required by the physical interface to send out a byte on the transmission medium
1659(see Section 26.2.4.5.1 "Internal Time Reference" ).
1660The dropper reuses the scheduler time stamps for performance reasons.
1661
1662Empty API
1663^^^^^^^^^
1664
1665The syntax of the empty API is as follows:
1666
1667.. code-block:: c
1668
1669    void rte_red_mark_queue_empty(struct rte_red *red, const uint64_t time)
1670
1671The arguments passed to the empty API are run-time data and the current time in bytes.
1672
1673Traffic Metering
1674----------------
1675
1676The traffic metering component implements the Single Rate Three Color Marker (srTCM) and
1677Two Rate Three Color Marker (trTCM) algorithms, as defined by IETF RFC 2697 and 2698 respectively.
1678These algorithms meter the stream of incoming packets based on the allowance defined in advance for each traffic flow.
1679As result, each incoming packet is tagged as green,
1680yellow or red based on the monitored consumption of the flow the packet belongs to.
1681
1682Functional Overview
1683~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1684
1685The srTCM algorithm defines two token buckets for each traffic flow,
1686with the two buckets sharing the same token update rate:
1687
1688*   Committed (C) bucket: fed with tokens at the rate defined by the Committed Information Rate (CIR) parameter
1689    (measured in IP packet bytes per second).
1690    The size of the C bucket is defined by the Committed Burst Size (CBS) parameter (measured in bytes);
1691
1692*   Excess (E) bucket: fed with tokens at the same rate as the C bucket.
1693    The size of the E bucket is defined by the Excess Burst Size (EBS) parameter (measured in bytes).
1694
1695The trTCM algorithm defines two token buckets for each traffic flow,
1696with the two buckets being updated with tokens at independent rates:
1697
1698*   Committed (C) bucket: fed with tokens at the rate defined by the Committed Information Rate (CIR) parameter
1699    (measured in bytes of IP packet per second).
1700    The size of the C bucket is defined by the Committed Burst Size (CBS) parameter (measured in bytes);
1701
1702*   Peak (P) bucket: fed with tokens at the rate defined by the Peak Information Rate (PIR) parameter
1703    (measured in IP packet bytes per second).
1704    The size of the P bucket is defined by the Peak Burst Size (PBS) parameter (measured in bytes).
1705
1706Please refer to RFC 2697 (for srTCM) and RFC 2698 (for trTCM) for details on how tokens are consumed
1707from the buckets and how the packet color is determined.
1708
1709Color Blind and Color Aware Modes
1710^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
1711
1712For both algorithms, the color blind mode is functionally equivalent to the color aware mode with input color set as green.
1713For color aware mode, a packet with red input color can only get the red output color,
1714while a packet with yellow input color can only get the yellow or red output colors.
1715
1716The reason why the color blind mode is still implemented distinctly than the color aware mode is
1717that color blind mode can be implemented with fewer operations than the color aware mode.
1718
1719Implementation Overview
1720~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1721
1722For each input packet, the steps for the srTCM / trTCM algorithms are:
1723
1724*   Update the C and E / P token buckets. This is done by reading the current time (from the CPU timestamp counter),
1725    identifying the amount of time since the last bucket update and computing the associated number of tokens
1726    (according to the pre-configured bucket rate).
1727    The number of tokens in the bucket is limited by the pre-configured bucket size;
1728
1729*   Identify the output color for the current packet based on the size of the IP packet
1730    and the amount of tokens currently available in the C and E / P buckets; for color aware mode only,
1731    the input color of the packet is also considered.
1732    When the output color is not red, a number of tokens equal to the length of the IP packet are
1733    subtracted from the C or E /P or both buckets, depending on the algorithm and the output color of the packet.
1734