Active Queue Management and Packet Scheduling (AQM) or Smarter Queue Management (SQM) (suggested by Dave Taht) Internet routers, lower-layer switches, other middleboxes include buffers or queues to hold packets when they are not immediately able to be forwarded to the next hop. The queues are intended to absorb bursts of traffic that may naturally occur, and avoid unneccessary losses. However, queues also cause latency and jitter in the eventual arrival times of packets. This can create issues and complications for interactive applications. Extremely large buffers have been noticed in some software and equipment. When these queues fill, interactive applications and other traffic can be severely impacted or completely broken, due to high and potentially oscillating delays. The Active Queue Management and Packet Scheduling working group (AQM) works on algorithms for proactively managing queues in order to: (1) help flow sources control their sending rates before the onset of necessary losses, e.g. through ECN (2) help minimize delays for interactive applications (3) help protect flows from negative impacts of other more aggressive or misbehaving flows The AQM working group will publish Informational and Best Current Practices documents that cover the design, use, and configuration of algorithms for managing queues in Internet devices and software. The AQM working group will also publish algorithm specifications that are found to be broadly applicable and beneficial. Evaluating these algorithms shall be done in coordination with the Internet Congestion Control Research Group (ICCRG) in order to select and assess the relevant criteria, scenarios, and metrics. AQM algorithms do not have to be implemented universally in order to be effective. Specifications will aid in producing proper implementations that avoid potential ambiguities and corner cases. "Interoperability" of algorithms and implementations of them is not the reason for creating these specifications; correctness is the primary motivation. The working group will not make changes to ECN, DiffServ, or other IETF protocols, though existing ECN, DiffServ, and other mechanisms may be used within the algorithms proposed. Many AQM algorithms have been proposed in academic literature, but very few are widely implemented and deployed. The goal of the working group is to produce recommendations that will actually be used, and algorithms that will actually be implemented, deployed in equipment, and enabled. Towards these ends, the group actively encourages participation from operators and implementers, and will coordinate with the IETF OPS area and other relevant parts of the IETF and Internet community. Wider research and evaluation of AQM mechanisms shall be coordinated with the IRTF/ICCRG, and significant participation in this WG from the academic and research community is highly desirable, when it is directly relevant to implementation and deployment. Goals and Milestones January 2014 Submit AQM recommendations to IESG for publication as BCP obsoleting RFC 2309 July 2014 Submit AQM evaluation guidelines to IESG for publication as Informational December 2014 Submit first algorithm specification to IESG for publication as Proposed Standard Relevant documents: Recommendations --------------- http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-baker-aqm-recommendation Algorithms Potentially for Consideration ---------------------------------------- PIE: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-pan-tsvwg-pie CoDel: http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-nichols-tsvwg-codel FavorQueue: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.2303v2.pdf