Mitigating Microbursts by Packet Recirculation in Programmable Switch

Abstract

Microbursts pose a significant challenge in 5G networks, leading to packet drops and high latency that impact user experience. Existing mitigation systems often suffer from transmission delays, high packet drop rates, and potential failure due to improper threshold settings. To address these challenges, we propose Programmable Switch-based Microburst Mitigation (PSMM), an innovative solution that employs two key techniques: in-switch recirculation and analytical threshold determination. The in-switch recirculation technique enables buffering packets within the switch during microburst events, eliminating the need for packet detours to neighboring switches and thereby reducing transmission delay and packet drops. The analytical threshold determination technique provides an optimal threshold range to trigger mitigation, preventing mitigation failure. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that PSMM can significantly outperform existing systems, reducing packet drops by 97.8% and latency by 26%.The findings highlight the effectiveness of PSMM in utilizing packet recirculation to mitigate microbursts and improve network performance and reliability in 5G environments.

Keywords

• Microburst
• mitigation
• programmable switch
• P4