Guaranteeing deadlines for inter-datacenter transfers

Inter-datacenter wide area networks (inter-DC WAN) carry a significant amount of data transfers that require to be completed within certain time periods, or deadlines. However, very little work has been done to guarantee such deadlines. The crux is that the current inter-DC WAN lacks an interface for users to specify their transfer deadlines and a mechanism for provider to ensure the completion while maintaining high WAN utilization. This paper addresses the problem by introducing a Deadline-based Network Abstraction (DNA) for inter-DC WANs. DNA allows users to explicitly specify the amount of data to be delivered and the deadline by which it has to be completed. The malleability of DNA provides flexibility in resource allocation. Based on this, we develop a system called Amoeba that implements DNA. Our simulations and testbed experiments show that Amoeba, by harnessing DNA's malleability, accommodates 15% more user requests with deadlines, while achieving 60% higher WAN utilization than prior solutions.