Reducing the impact of false time out on TCP performance in TCP over OBS networks

Random burst contention losses plague the performance of Optical Burst Switched networks. Such random losses occur even in low load network condition due to the analogous behavior of wavelength and routing algorithms. Since a burst may carry many packets from many TCP sources, its loss can trick the TCP sources to conclude/infer that the underlying (optical) network is congested. Accordingly, TCP reduces sending rate and switches over to either fast retransmission or slow start state. This reaction by TCP is uncalled-for in TCP over OBS networks as the optical network may not be congested during such random burst contention losses. Hence, these losses are to be addressed in order to improve the performance of TCP over OBS networks. Existing work in the literature achieves the above laid objective at the cost of violating the semantics of OBS and/or TCP. Several other works make delay inducing assumptions. In our work, we introduce a new layer, called Adaptation Layer, in between TCP and OBS layers. This layer uses burst retransmission to mitigate the effect of burst loss due to contention on TCP by leveraging the difference between round trip times of TCP and OBS. We achieve our objective with the added advantage of maintaining the semantics of the layers intact.     

Dropping Policy with Burst Retransmission to Improve the Throughput of TCP Over Optical Burst-switched Networks

A major concern in optical burst-switched (OBS) networks is contention, which occurs when more than one bursts contend for the same data channel at the same time. Due to the bufferless nature of OBS networks, these contentions randomly occur at any degree of congestion in the network. When contention occurs at any core node, the core node drops bursts according to its dropping policy. Burst loss in OBS networks significantly degrades the throughput of TCP sources in the local access networks because current TCP congestion control mechanisms perform a slow start phase mainly due to contention rather than heavy congestion. However, there has not been much study about the impact of burst loss on the performance of TCP over OBS networks. To improve TCP throughput over OBS networks, we first introduce a dropping policy with burst retransmission that retransmits the bursts dropped due to contention, at the ingress node. Then, we extend the dropping policy with burst retransmission to drop a burst that has experienced fewer retransmissions in the event of contention at a core node in order to reduce the number of events that a TCP source enters the slow start phase due to contention. In addition, we propose to limit the number of retransmissions of each burst to prevent severe congestion. For the performance evaluation of the proposed schemes, we provide an analytic throughput model of TCP over OBS networks. Through simulations as well as analytic modeling, it is shown that the proposed dropping policy with burst retransmission can improve TCP throughput over OBS networks compared with an existing dropping policy without burst retransmission.     

A stochastic model for the behavior of multiple TCP NewReno sources over optical burst switching network

This work proposes a stochastic model to characterize the transmission control protocol (TCP) over optical burst switching (OBS) networks which helps to understand the interaction between the congestion control mechanism of TCP and the characteristic bursty losses in the OBS network. We derive the steady-state throughput of a TCP NewReno source by modeling it as a Markov chain and the OBS network as an open queueing network with rejection blocking. We model all the phases in the evolution of TCP congestion window and evaluate the number of packets sent and time spent in different states of TCP. We model the mixed assembly process, burst assembler and disassembler modules, and the core network using queueing theory and compute the burst loss probability and end-to-end delay in the network. We derive expression for the throughput of a TCP source by solving the models developed for the source and the network with a set of fixed-point equations. To evaluate the impact of a burst loss on each TCP flow accurately, we define the burst as a composition of per-flow-bursts (which is a burst of packets from a single source). Analytical and simulation results validate the model and highlight the importance of accounting for individual phases in the evolution of TCP congestion window.     

光突发交换网络中的传输控制协议性能

光突发交换(OBS)是IP over WDM核心网络采用的交换技术。在OBS网络中,送往同一边缘节点的IP分组汇聚成传输和交换的基本单元———数据突发(DB),DB丢弃会导致大量IP分组丢失,显著影响传输层的性能。文中分析OBS网络的参数对传输控制协议(TCP)吞吐量和时延的影响。仿真结果表明,DB丢包率越高,TCP性能越差。在低丢包率情况下,随着DB长度的增加,TCP吞吐量和端到端时延明显增加,高丢包率情况下则不明显;随着汇聚周期的增加,TCP吞吐量逐渐下降,端到端时延逐渐增加。     

Performance evaluation of high speed TCP over optical burst switching networks

Study of TCP performance over OBS networks has been an important problem of research lately and it was found that due to the congestion control mechanism of TCP and the inherent bursty losses in the Optical Burst Switching (OBS) network, the throughput of TCP connections degrade. On the other hand, High Speed TCP (HSTCP) was proposed as an alternative to the use of TCP in high bandwidth-delay product networks. HSTCP aggressively increases the congestion window used in TCP, when the available bandwidth is high and decreases the window cautiously in response to a congestion event. In this work, we make a thorough simulation study of HSTCP over OBS networks. While the earlier works in the literature used a linear chain of nodes as the network topology for the simulation, we use the popular 14-node NSFNET topology that represents an arbitrary mesh network in our study. We also study the performance of HSTCP over OBS for different bandwidths of access networks. We use two different cases for simulations where in the first HSTCP connections are routed on disjoint paths while in the second they contend for resources in the network links. These cases of simulations along with the mesh topology help us clearly distinguish between the congestion and contention losses in the OBS network and their effect on HSTCP throughput. For completeness of study, we also simulate TCP traffic over OBS networks in all these cases and compare its throughput with that of HSTCP. We observe that irrespective of the access network bandwidth and the burst loss rate in the network, HSTCP outperforms TCP in terms of the throughput and robustness against multiple burst losses up to the expected theoretical burst loss probability of 10⁻³.     

Improving Reno and New-Reno's performances over OBS networks without SACK

In TCP over optical burst switching (OBS) networks, consecutive multiple packet losses are common since an optical burst usually contains a number of consecutive packets from the same TCP sender. It has been proved that over OBS networks Reno and New-Reno achieve lower throughput performances than that of SACK, which can address the inefficiency of Reno and New-Reno in dealing with consecutive multiple packet losses. However, SACK adopts complex mechanisms not only at the sender's but also at the receiver's protocol stack, and thus has a higher difficulty in deployment.In this paper we propose B-Reno, a new TCP implementation designed for TCP over OBS networks. Using some simple modifications to New-Reno only at the sender's protocol stack, B-Reno can overcome the inefficiencies of Reno and New-Reno in dealing with consecutive multiple packet losses and thus improve their throughputs over OBS networks. Moreover, B-Reno can also achieve performance similar with that of SACK over OBS networks while avoiding SACK's difficulty in deployment due to complex mechanisms at both the sender's and the receiver's protocol stack.     

FAST TCP over optical burst switched networks: Modeling and stability analysis

FAST TCP is important for promoting data-intensive applications since it can cleverly react to both packet loss and delay for detecting network congestion. This paper provides a continuous time model and extensive stability analysis of FAST TCP congestion-control mechanism in bufferless Optical Burst Switched Networks (OBS). The paper first shows that random burst contentions are essential to stabilize the network, but cause throughput degradation in FAST TCP flows when a burst with all the packets from a single round is dropped. Second, it shows that FAST TCP is vulnerable to burst delay and fails to detect network congestion due to the little variation of round-trip time, thus unstable. Finally it shows that introducing extra delays by implementing burst retransmission stabilizes FAST TCP over OBS. The paper proves that FAST TCP is not stable over barebone OBS. However, it is locally, exponentially, and asymptotically stable over OBS with burst retransmission.     

TCP over optical burst-switched networks with controlled burst retransmission

For optical burst-switched (OBS) networks in which TCP is implemented at a higher layer, the loss of bursts can lead to serious degradation of TCP performance. Due to the bufferless nature of OBS, random burst losses may occur, even at low traffic loads. Consequently, these random burst losses may be mistakenly interpreted by the TCP layer as congestion in the network. The TCP sender will then trigger congestion control mechanisms, thereby reducing TCP throughput unnecessarily. In this paper, we introduce a controlled retransmission scheme in which the bursts lost due to contention in the OBS network are retransmitted at the OBS layer. The OBS retransmission scheme can reduce the burst loss probability in the OBS core network. Also, the OBS retransmission scheme can reduce the probability that the TCP layer falsely detects congestion, thereby improving the TCP throughput. We develop an analytical model for evaluating the burst loss probability in an OBS network that uses a retransmission scheme, and we also analyze TCP throughput when the OBS layer implements burst retransmission. We develop a simulation model to validate the analytical results. Simulation and analytical results show that an OBS layer with controlled burst retransmission provides up to two to three orders of magnitude improvement in TCP throughput over an OBS layer without burst retransmission. This significant improvement is primarily because the TCP layer triggers fewer time-outs when the OBS retransmission scheme is used.     

TCP Window-Based Flow-Oriented Dynamic Assembly Algorithm for OBS Networks

In transport control protocol (TCP) over optical burst switching (OBS) networks, TCP window size and OBS parameters, including assembly period and burst dropping probability, will impact the network performance. In this paper, a parameter window data dropping probability(WDDP), is defined to analyze the impact of the assembly and the burst loss on the network performance in terms of the round trip time and the throughput. To reduce the WDDP without introducing the extra assembly delay penalty, we propose a novel TCP window based flow-oriented assembly algorithm dynamic assembly period (DAP). In the traditional OBS assembly algorithms, the packets with the same destination and class of service (CoS) are assembled into the same burst, i.e., the packets from different sources will be assembled into one burst. In that case, one burst loss will influence multiple TCP sources. In DAP, the packets from one TCP connection are assembled into bursts, which can avoid the above situation. Through comparing the two consecutive burst lengths, DAP can track the variation of TCP window dynamically and update the assembly period for the next assembly. In addition, the ingress node architecture for the flow-oriented assembly is designed. The performance of DAP is evaluated and compared with that of fixed assembly period (FAP) over a single TCP connection and multiple TCP connections. The results show that DAP performs better than FAP at almost the whole range of burst dropping probability.     

Multi-layer loss recovery in TCP over optical burst-switched networks

It is well-known that the bufferless nature of optical burst-switching (OBS) networks cause random burst loss even at low traffic loads. When TCP is used over OBS, these random losses make the TCP sender decrease its congestion window even though the network may not be congested. This results in significant TCP throughput degradation. In this paper, we propose a multi-layer loss-recovery approach with automatic retransmission request (ARQ) and Snoop for OBS networks given that TCP is used at the transport layer. We evaluate the performance of Snoop and ARQ at the lower layer over a hybrid IP-OBS network. Based on the simulation results, the proposed multi-layer hybrid ARQ + Snoop approach outperforms all other approaches even at high loss probability. We developed an analytical model for end-to-end TCP throughput and verified the model with simulation results.     

光突发交换网络中TCP Reno 的性能分析

该文在分析光突发交换(OBS)网络对TCP性能影响的基础上,研究了单个突发所包含的属于同一TCP/ IP连接的分组数对TCP Reno吞吐量性能的影响,得到了一个吞吐量与突发丢失率、单个突发所包含分组数以及往返时延(RTT)的闭合表达式;并通过仿真验证了分析的正确性;分析和仿真结果表明,在接入链路带宽较大时,突发所包含的分组数存在一个最佳值,使TCP吞吐量达到最大。     

Traffic statistics and performance evaluation in optical burst switched networks

Optical burst switching (OBS) is a promising switching technology to exploit the potential benefits of optical communication and, at the same time, support statistical multiplexing of data traffic at a fine granularity. To quantify its benefits, the paper describes several typical burst assembly algorithms and studies their impact on the assembled burst traffic characteristics as well as the performance of TCP traffic. Also described is a proactive burst scheduling algorithm, called burst overlap reduction algorithm (BORA), which schedules locally assembled bursts in such a way as to reduce burst contention at downstream nodes in OBS networks. Furthermore, to provide analytical insights into performance evaluation of OBS networks, a burst loss model at an OBS node and its extension to different reservation protocols are presented.     

A two-moment performance analysis of optical burst switched networks with shared fibre delay lines in a feedback configuration

Fibre delay lines (FDLs) can substantially reduce the burst loss in Optical Burst Switching (OBS) networks and share-per-node FDL configurations can provide a more cost-efficient solution compared to architectures where delay lines are shared per port. Nevertheless, mathematical performance analysis of this configuration is more difficult due to traffic correlations arising from the shared resource. In this paper, an approximate two-moment traffic model is developed for quantifying end-to-end burst blocking probability in networks of OBS switches with share-per-node FDLs. The two-moment approach can improve model accuracy over more usual Poisson network analysis methods and additionally allows the characteristics of offered load to be taken into account. The accuracy of the proposed method is shown to be favourable, when compared to discrete-event simulations of an OBS network.     

Congestion window-based adaptive burst assembly for TCP traffic in OBS networks

Burst assembly is one of the key factors affecting the TCP performance in optical burst switching (OBS) networks. When the TCP congestion window is small, the fixed-delay burst assembler waits unnecessarily long, which increases the end-to-end delay and thus decreases the TCP goodput. On the other hand, when the TCP congestion window becomes larger, the fixed-delay burst assembler may unnecessarily generate a large number of small-sized bursts, which increases the overhead and decreases the correlation gain, resulting in a reduction in the TCP goodput. In this paper, we propose adaptive burst assembly algorithms that use the congestion window sizes of TCP flows. Using simulations, we show that the usage of the congestion window size in the burst assembly algorithm significantly improves the TCP goodput (by up to 38.4% on the average and by up to 173.89% for individual flows) compared with the timer-based assembly, even when the timer-based assembler uses the optimum assembly period. It is shown through simulations that even when estimated values of the congestion window size, that are obtained via passive measurements, are used, TCP goodput improvements are still close to the results obtained by using exact values of the congestion window.     

Performance evaluation of throughput in optical burst switching

Optical burst switching (OBS) provides a promising solution to utilize the huge terahertz bandwidth of optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) transmission technology. To exploit this bandwidth, several reservation schemes have been proposed that include just‐in‐time (JIT) signaling, just‐enough‐time (JET) signaling and burst segmentation (BS). It is necessary to investigate the performance of these schemes under the same constraints for a prescribed OBS application. Accordingly, in this paper, we analyzed and compared the performance of JIT, JET and BS techniques under various scenarios such as network size, delay variation and load variation in an OBS network using various performance metrics, such as the offset time and switch configuration time. Also, the performance of the network under various switching delays was also investigated. The modified BS reservation scheme has been found to yield significantly better performance and better throughput compared with the JIT and JET reservation schemes. Test results show that the effect of varying loads as well as delays significantly impacts the performance of the OBS network. The results presented in this paper are expected to lead further performance improvements in OBS networks using the BS reservation scheme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improving TCP performance over optical burst-switched (OBS) networks using forward segment redundancy

Random contentions occur in optical burst-switched (OBS) networks because of one-way signaling and lack of optical buffers. These contentions can occur at low loads and are not necessarily an indication of congestion. The loss caused by them, however, causes TCP at the transport layer to reduce its send rate drastically, which is unnecessary and reduces overall performance. In this paper, we propose forward segment redundancy (FSR), a proactive technique to prevent data loss during random contentions in the optical core. With FSR, redundant TCP segments are appended to each burst at the edge and redundant burst segmentation is implemented in the core, so that when a contention occurs, primarily redundant data are dropped. We develop an analytical throughput model for TCP over OBS with FSR and perform extensive simulations. FSR is found to improve TCP’s performance by an order of magnitude at high loads and by over two times at lower loads.     

OBS网络中基于优先级的先分割后缓存冲突解决方法

为了有效地降低突发包的丢失率和保证OBS网络中不同优先级业务的服务质量,提出了一种基于优先级的先分割后缓存冲突解决方法。该方法通过在多波长信道系统的输出数据信道上设置光纤延迟线组来缓存被分割的冲突突发包。当冲突发生时,首先基于突发包的优先级和处理完毕时间进行"竞争突发包头部分割或者原突发包尾部分割"处理;无冲突部分进行交换或者直接在事先预留的输出数据信道上处理,冲突部分的分割突发包进行光缓存。仿真结果表明,多波长信道系统中,高优先级突发包的丢失率低于低优先级突发包的丢失率。同时该方法在一定程度上可以有效地减少端到端的传输时延和整个网络的丢包率,从而提高整个OBS网络的性能。     

Hybrid switching and p-routing for optical burst switching networks

One promising switching technology for wavelength-division multiplexing optical networks is optical burst switching (OBS). However, there are major deficiencies of OBS. (1) The delay offset between a control message and its corresponding data burst is based on the diameter of a network. This affects network efficiency, quality-of-service, and network scalability.( 2) OBS adopts one-way resource reservation scheme, which causes frequent burst collision and, thus, burst loss. We address the above two important issues in OBS. In particular, we study how to improve the performance of delay and loss in OBS. To reduce the end-to-end delay, we propose a hybrid switching scheme. The hybrid switching is a combination of lightpath switching and OBS switching. A virtual topology design algorithm based on simulated annealing to minimize the longest shortest path through the virtual topology is presented. To minimize burst collision and loss, we propose a new routing algorithm, namely, p-routing, for OBS network. The p-routing is based on the wavelength available probability. A path that has higher available probability is less likely to drop bursts due to collision. The probability-based p-routing can reduce the volatility, randomness, and uncertainty of one-way resource reservation. Our studies show that hybrid switching and p-routing are complementary and both can dramatically improve the performance of OBS networks.