Traffic management for TCP/IP over satellite ATM networks

Several Ka-band satellite systems have been proposed that will use ATM technology to seamlessly transport Internet traffic. The ATM UBR, GFR, and ABR service categories have been designed for data. However, several studies have reported poor TCP performance over satellite ATM networks. We describe techniques to improve TCP performance over satellite ATM networks. We first discuss the various design options available for TCP end systems, IP-ATM edge devices, as well as ATM switches for long-latency connections. We discuss buffer management policies, guaranteed rate services, and the virtual source/virtual destination option in ATM. We present a comparison of ATM service categories for TCP transport over satellite links. The main goal of this article is to discuss design and performance issues for the transport of TCP over UBR, GFR, and ABR services for satellite ATM networks     

A detailed experimental performance evaluation on TCP over UBR

The ATM service category UBR is intended for non-real-time applications that do not require guaranteed QoS commitments. With additional, relatively inexpensive control functions such as packet discard schemes, UBR could become a cost-effective alternative for the transmission of data traffic, offering a straightforward and flexible solution as opposed to nrt-VBR and GFR that applies stricter traffic specifications as well as ABR with its sophisticated and complex rate-control protocol. This paper presents the results obtained from a comprehensive set of experiments with TCP over UBR, comprising measurements taken on different protocol layers. The goal is to experimentally investigate the performance of UBR to carry TCP traffic, to evaluate the performance gain achievable by packet discard schemes and TCP parameter tuning, to study the influence of the TCP implementation, and in a final step, to relate the measurements to simulation results. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Buffer management and scheduling schemes for TCP/IP over ATM‐GFR

Today ATM technology is facing challenges from integrated service IP, IP switching, gigabit IP router and gigabit ethernet. Although ATM is approved by ITU‐T as the standard technology in B‐ISDN, its survivability is still in question. Since ATM‐UBR (unspecified bit rate) provides no service guarantee and ATM‐ABR (available bit rate) is still unattainable for most users, many existing users have little or no incentives to migrate to ATM technology. The guaranteed frame rate (GFR) service is introduced to deal with this dilemma. The GFR can guarantee the minimum cell rate (MCR) with fair access to excess bandwidth. This paper studies various schemes to support the GFR. We have studied different discarding and scheduling schemes, and compared their throughput and fairness when TCP/IP traffic is carried. Through simulations, it is shown that only per‐VC queueing with weighted round robin (WRR) can guarantee minimum cell rate. Among all the schemes that have been explored, we recommend dynamic threshold–early packet discard (DT–EPD) integrated with MCR+ (a WRR variant) to support the GFR service. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ATM traffic management in an LMDS wireless access network

We investigate the capacity of LMDS to support ATM services in the local loop. In particular, we evaluate the performance of a MAC protocol for this system when transporting voice and IP traffic using the VBR and GFR service categories of ATM, respectively. Our results show that the MAC protocol is well suited for voice traffic but in general lacks efficient bandwidth management mechanisms to support the more dynamic bandwidth requirements of IP traffic     

ATM交换机EPD性能分析

利用ＡＴＭ网络传送ＴＣＰ分组时的一个重要问题是分组中任何一个信元丢失都半导致分组的重传,为解决这一问题,一个方法是发生拥塞时交换机有选择丢弃信元,在有限的存储器容量下,交换机智能化的信元集合源状态与缓存器占用的联合分布,基于这一结果,本文推导出的ＥＰＤ系统的分组丢失率的上界和下界,通过分析比较发现,使用ＥＰＤ的系统,当门限设为缓存器大小时其性能将优于无控制系统。     

A new ATM adaptation layer for TCP/IP over wireless ATM networks

This paper describes the design and performance of a new ATM adaptation layer protocol (AAL‐T) for improving TCP performance over wireless ATM networks. The wireless links are characterized by higher error rates and burstier error patterns in comparison with the fiber links for which ATM was introduced in the beginning. Since the low performance of TCP over wireless ATM networks is mainly due to the fact that TCP always responds to all packet losses by congestion control, the key idea in the design is to push the error control portion of TCP to the AAL layer so that TCP is only responsible for congestion control. The AAL‐T is based on a novel and reliable ARQ mechanism to support quality‐critical TCP traffic over wireless ATM networks. The proposed AAL protocol has been validated using the OPNET tool with the simulated wireless ATM network. The simulation results show that the AAL‐T provides higher throughput for TCP over wireless ATM networks compared to the existing approach of TCP with AAL 5. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Design and evaluation of multicast GFR for supporting TCP/IP over hybrid wired/wireless ATM

The major challenges of designing multicast traffic control protocols for a combined wired/wireless network are the varying transmission characteristics (bandwidth, error, and propagation delay) of the wireless and wired media, and the different, possibly conflicting frame rate requests from multiple sources. To address these issues, in this paper we design and evaluate new unicast and multicast guaranteed frame rate (GFR) schemes for supporting TCP/IP traffic over a combined wired/wireless ATM network. We first propose a new, flexible weighted buffer management, and a frame‐based virtual spacing (VS) mechanism implementing weighted fair queueing. The unicast GFR scheme is based on the integration of the new weighted buffer management, and either cell‐based or frame‐based VS. It is then extended to support multicast GFR flows. The multicast scheme presented in this paper is the first multicast GFR scheme appeared in the literature. These schemes are carefully evaluated over several network configuration, supporting heterogeneous TCP/IP traffic with various frame rates. Simulation results show that the new schemes guarantee the minimum rates requested, provide excellent fairness, and achieve reasonably high efficiency. The new schemes may be extended to provide differentiated service in both IP and mobile IP frame work. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Dynamics of TCP traffic over ATM networks

Investigates the performance of transport control protocol (TCP) connections over ATM networks without ATM-level congestion control and compares it to the performance of TCP over packet-based networks. For simulations of congested networks, the effective throughput of TCP over ATM can be quite low when cells are dropped at the congested ATM switch. The low throughput is due to wasted bandwidth as the congested link transmits cells from “corrupted” packets, i.e., packets in which at least one cell is dropped by the switch. The authors investigate two packet-discard strategies that alleviate the effects of fragmentation. Partial packet discard, in which remaining cells are discarded after one cell has been dropped from a packet, somewhat improves throughput. They introduce early packet discard, a strategy in which the switch drops whole packets prior to buffer overflow. This mechanism prevents fragmentation and restores throughput to maximal levels     

Performance of TCP extensions on noisy high BDP networks

Experiments on high bandwidth delay product (BDP) networks assist in the design and understanding of future global networks. This paper describes the results of experiments with different implementations of TCP on a high speed ATM/SONET network over high delay and noisy channels. Comparisons are also made with host/traffic configurations over various smaller BDP systems, experimental comparisons of three different implementations of TCP; TCP Reno, TCP new Reno, and TCP SACK as a function of bit error rates (BER) and round-trip times (RTT) are presented     

Overview of implementing ATM based enterprise local area networkfor desktop multimedia computing

The authors discuss important implementation issues in an ATM-based enterprise network, and propose possible migration strategies for the smooth introduction of ATM into the desktop computing environment. They present the ATM traffic service classes and the associated traffic management functions. The authors cover the latest ATM forum standardization efforts on traffic management functions and LAN emulation. Finally, they discuss how to seamlessly support the existing transport control protocol (TCP)/Internet protocol (IP) in an ATM environment     

ATM cell delay and loss for best-effort TCP in the presence ofisochronous traffic

This paper reports the findings of a simulation study of the queueing behavior of “best-effort” traffic in the presence of constant bit-rate and variable bit-rate isochronous traffic. In this study, best-effort traffic refers to ATM cells that support communications between host end systems executing various applications and exchanging information using TCP/IP. The performance measures considered are TCP cell loss, TCP packet loss, mean cell queueing delay, and mean cell queue length. Our simulation results show that, under certain conditions, best-effort TCP traffic may experience as much as 2% cell loss. Our results also show that the probability of cell and packet loss decreases logarithmically with increased buffer size     

TCP Vegas: end to end congestion avoidance on a global Internet

Vegas is an implementation of TCP that achieves between 37 and 71% better throughput on the Internet, with one-fifth to one-half the losses, as compared to the implementation of TCP in the Reno distribution of BSD Unix. This paper motivates and describes the three key techniques employed by Vegas, and presents the results of a comprehensive experimental performance study, using both simulations and measurements on the Internet, of the Vegas and Reno implementations of TCP     

Enhancing satellite broadcasting services using multiresolutionmodulations

In this paper we propose to take advantage of the energy link margin that can exist of satellite connections to enrich the DVB-S services with Web-like interactive services. The exploitation of such a margin is obtained by using multiresolution modulation techniques. The system architecture analysed is asymmetrical, composed of a satellite forward link and a narrowband terrestrial reverse link. ATM is adopted to support different QoS for different types of information delivered. The satellite propagation delay and the traffic and congestion control of ATM suggest to modify the slow start and the congestion avoidance of the TCP. Our approach is based on the combination of a fixed window flow control at the transport layer with the ATM traffic and congestion control. Our analysis shows that the system performance is satisfactory if some bounds of the TCP buffer size are respected and the spacing of the resource management cells is within a given range of values     

Sorting-based routing algorithms of a photonic ATM cell switch:HiPower

HiPower is a photonic ATM switch having a two-layered structure, consisting of an electrical control layer and an optical transport layer, realized by a detouring hypercube interconnection network structure. Four sorting-based routing algorithms suitable for high-speed hardware control of HiPower are proposed. They are evaluated by computer simulations in terms of delay and cell loss in the switch under uniform traffic distribution. The simulation results suggest that all four methods are acceptable in their traffic characteristics and that the DD method, in which the cell nearest to its destination is given the highest priority in routing, seems to be the most attractive from the hardware implementation viewpoint. It is also confirmed that subpriority sorting based on the number of detourings reduces the delay variance. Simulation results proving that the detouring hypercube network is a practical and powerful architecture for a two-layered ATM cell switch, thus, the HiPower providing high throughput, are given     

Afterburner [network-independent card for protocols]

Many current implementations of protocols such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are inefficient because data are often accessed more frequently than necessary. Three techniques that reduce the need for memory bandwidth are proposed. The techniques are copy-on-write, page remapping, and single-copy. Afterburner, a network-independent card that provides the services that are necessary for a single-copy protocol stack, is described. The card has 1 MByte of local buffers and provides a simple interface to a variety of network link adapters, including HIPPI and asynchronous transfer mode (ATM). Afterburner can support transfers to and from the link adapter card at rates up to 1 Gbit/s. An implementation of TCP/IP that uses the features provided by Afterburner to reduce the movement of data to a single copy is discussed. Measurements of the end-to-end performance of Afterburner and the single-copy implementation of TCP/IP are presented     

On the limits of electronic ATM switching

This article discusses the principal advantages and limitations of electronic switching in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks. Key design parameters of ATM switch implementations are defined, and their relationships with respect to performance, complexity, and cost are modeled and discussed. Design and implementation experience is reported on a very high-performance four-input, four-output ATM switch that has been designed as part of the DARPA-sponsored “Thunder and Lightning” project at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This research project is focused on the design and prototype demonstration of ATM links and electronic switches operating at 40 Gb/s per link (TDM), with potential scalability to 100 Gb/s. Such aggressive link rates are near the implementation limits for electronic ATM switches; they place severe requirements on switch architecture, particularly the buffering scheme     

Accumulation-based congestion control

This paper generalizes the TCP Vegas congestion avoidance mechanism and uses accumulation , buffered packets of a flow inside network routers, as a congestion measure based on which a family of congestion control schemes can be derived. We call this model Accumulation-based Congestion Control (ACC), which fits into the nonlinear optimization framework proposed by Kelly. The ACC model serves as a reference for packet-switching network implementations. We show that TCP Vegas is one possible scheme under this model. It is well known that Vegas suffers from round trip propagation delay estimation error and reverse path congestion. We therefore design a new Monaco scheme that solves these problems by employing an out-of-band, receiver-based accumulation estimator, with the support of two FIFO priority queues from the (congested) routers. Comparisons between these two schemes demonstrate that Monaco does not suffer from the problems mentioned above and achieves better performance than Vegas. We use ns-2 simulations and Linux implementation experiments to show that the static and dynamic performance of Monaco matches the theoretic results. One key issue regarding the ACC model in general, i.e., the scalability of bottleneck buffer requirement, and a solution using a virtual queueing algorithm are discussed and evaluated.     

Performance of a large multicast ATM switch

In this paper, we present the design of a large self-routing multicast ATM switch. The switch consists of a sorting network followed by a 3-stage routing network. We first present a simple design of a large sorting network built using small sized shared memory that can be used as a building block for a large sorting network. Small sized shared memory is also used in the 3-stage routing network making the switch modular and easy to implement using current VLSI technology. As the network uses shared memory modules, multicasting functionality is easily built into the network. The performance of the proposed network is compared with an equivalent completely shared memory switch using computer simulations under bursty traffic model. The results show that the proposed network has better performance in terms of cell loss ratio than the completely shared memory switch under moderate to heavy traffic load (0.6 ≤ effective offered load ≤ 1.2). Furthermore, multicast cell delays are drastically improved. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Adaptive nonlinear congestion controller for a differentiated-services framework

The growing demand of computer usage requires efficient ways of managing network traffic in order to avoid or at least limit the level of congestion in cases where increases in bandwidth are not desirable or possible. In this paper we developed and analyzed a generic Integrated Dynamic Congestion Control (IDCC) scheme for controlling traffic using information on the status of each queue in the network. The IDCC scheme is designed using nonlinear control theory based on a nonlinear model of the network that is generated using fluid flow considerations. The methodology used is general and independent of technology, as for example TCP/IP or ATM. We assume a differentiated-services network framework and formulate our control strategy in the same spirit as IP DiffServ for three types of services: Premium Service, Ordinary Service, and Best Effort Service. The three differentiated classes of traffic operate at each output port of a router/switch. An IDCC scheme is designed for each output port, and a simple to implement nonlinear controller, with proven performance, is designed and analyzed. Using analysis performance bounds are derived for provable controlled network behavior, as dictated by reference values of the desired or acceptable length of the associated queues. By tightly controlling each output port, the overall network performance is also expected to be tightly controlled. The IDCC methodology has been applied to an ATM network. We use OPNET simulations to demonstrate that the proposed control methodology achieves the desired behavior of the network, and possesses important attributes, as e.g., stable and robust behavior, high utilization with bounded delay and loss, together with good steady-state and transient behavior.