Random Early Detection (RED) | Computer Networks - Computer Science Engineering (CSE) PDF Download

RANDOM EARLY DETECTION (RED)
A second mechanism, called random early detection (RED), is similar to the DECbit scheme in that each router is programmed to monitor its own queue length, and when it detects that congestion is imminent, to notify the source to adjust its congestion window. RED, invented by Sally Floyd and Van Jacobson in the early 1990s, differs from the DECbit scheme in two major ways.

The first is that rather than explicitly sending a congestion notification message to the source, RED is most commonly implemented such that it implicitly notifies the source of congestion by dropping one of its packets. The source is, therefore, effectively notified by the subsequent timeout or duplicate ACK. In case you haven’t already guessed, RED is designed to be used inconjunction with TCP, which currently detects congestion by means of timeouts (or some other means of detecting packet loss such asduplicate ACKs).

As the “early” part of the RED acronym suggests, the gateway drops the packet earlier than it would have to, so as to notify the source that it should decrease its congestion window sooner than it would normally have.