Estimation of available bandwidth for an M / G / 1 queueing system

This paper is concerned with estimating the available bandwidth, the residual processing capacity, of a single-server queueing system whose service rate and the input traffic load are not known in advance. We analyze the minimal-backlogging method which has been proposed to estimate the available bandwidth by sending probing packets. We show that an M / G / 1 queueing system probed by the minimal-backlogging method is stable. A consistent estimator of the inverse of available bandwidth is proposed based on the sojourn times of the probing packets. We also estimate the available bandwidth of a local server which is connected to the probing node with non-zero delay as an application of the theory developed for a single-server queue. We evaluate the accuracy of the proposed available bandwidth estimation scheme by simulation.