The exponential growth of Internet brings to focus the need to control such large scale networks so that they appear as coherent, almost intelligent, organ isms. It is a challenge to regulate such a complex network of heterogeneous elements with dynamically changing traffic conditions. To make such a sys tem reliable and manageable, the decision making should be decentralized. It is desirable to find simple local rules and strategies that can produce coherent and purposeful global behavior. Furthermore, these control mechanisms must be adaptive to effectively respond to continually varying...

The exponential growth of Internet brings to focus the need to control such large scale networks so that they appear as coherent, almost intelligent, organ- isms. It is a challenge to regulate such a complex network of heterogeneous elements with dynamically changing traffic conditions. To make such a sys- tem reliable and manageable, the decision making should be decentralized. It is desirable to find simple local rules and strategies that can produce coherent and purposeful global behavior. Furthermore, these control mechanisms must be adaptive to effectively respond to continually varying...