I would like to thank my advisor Nick McKeown, for the guidance he has provided me through my Ph.D., as well as the members of my reading committee, Balaji Prabhakar and Nick Bambos, and my former advisor, Fouad Tobagi. I am also very grateful to those that helped me improve this thesis by reading it in its early stages, Sundar Iyer, Nandita Dukkipati, Greg Watson and Mary McDevitt. I also would like to thank Hui Zhang for his help in Chapter 2, Byung-Gon Chun for his implementation of a TCP Switch, and Mor Harchol-Balter for her suggestions for the analysis of the CS-SJF discipline in Chapter 3. I want to thank NLANR, Sprint Labs (Chuck Fraleigh and Brian Lyles), CAIDA and Ciena for providing part of the information that have analyzed in this thesis.
I will not forget everybody with whom I been in Gates 342: Youngmi, Pankaj, Amr, Guido, Paul, Yashar, Giulio and Gireesh, and those other members of the research group, Isaac, Rui, Adisak, Da, Steve, Kersten and Mina. Certainly, my life at Stanford has not always been centered around work, and I also would like to remember John, Oskar, Katya, Krishna, Brad, Waël, Athina, Mansour, Victor, Kristin, Lorenz, Chuck, Kostas, Charlie, and Kevin. I also would like to thank the members of the Spanish communities at Stanford, Iberia, and the Bay Area, AESV, specially Juanjo, Alberto, Carlos y Carlos, Victor y Natacha, Victor y Esperanza, José Manuel, Mario, César y Teresa, David y María, Leo, Diego, and Cintya.
Last but not least, I would like to thank those who really made it possible for me to do my Ph.D. at Stanford because of their encouragement and emotional support: my parents, my grandfather, my twin sisters, my brother, my elder sister and my godmother. My love and gratitude to all of you.