In recent years, Ethernet fabrics have been developed with a view to using resources efficiently and simplifying the operation of data center networks. With Ethernet fabrics, frames are forwarded along the shortest paths based on routing tables without blocking ports. Ethernet fabrics are expected to be employed in more general networks including carrier access networks. In particular, the use of shortest path bridging MAC (SPBM) is expected to allow smooth migration from existing networks. With SPBM, networks can be flexibly constructed on demand in any network topology. If an arbitrary topology is constructed, traffic paths can overlap on specific links and throughput unfairness occurs. However, it is difficult to achieve accurate weighted fairness with existing schemes. This paper proposes employing weighted N rate N+1 color marking (WNRN+1CM) in SPBM networks to achieve per-flow weighted fairness. WNRN+1CM was developed to realize weighted fairness in layer-2 ring networks and the applicability to other network topologies has not yet been discussed. The outline of WNRN+1CM in SPBM is as follows. The weight and the maximum rate are provided for each flow at edge bridges. When edge bridges receive frames from outside the SPBM domain, they assign colors to frames according to the input rate and the weight of each flow. The color indicates the dropping priority. If the input rate exceeds the maximum rate, frames are discarded to limit the throughput. Core bridges selectively discard frames based on their color and the dropping threshold when congestion occurs. The bandwidth is allocated based on the weights. The performance of WNRN+1CM is evaluated with a theoretical analysis and computer simulations. WNRN+1CM can achieve weighted fairness in aggregation networks and multipoint networks. The throughput ratio matches the weights and the flow throughputs are limited to their maximum rate regardless of changes in traffic.

Given the availability of high-speed Ethernet and HW based protocol offload, clustered systems using a commodity network fabric (e.g., TCP/IP over Ethernet) are expected to become more attractive for a range of e-business and data center applications. In this paper, we describe a comprehensive simulation to study the performance of clustered database systems using such a fabric. The simulation model currently supports both TCP and SCTP as the transport protocol and models an Oracle 9i like clustered DBMS running a TPC-C like workload. The model can be used to study a wide variety of issues regarding the performance of clustered DBMS systems including the impact of enhancements to network layers (transport, IP, MAC), QoS mechanisms or latency improvements, and cluster-wide power control issues.