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TCP-ACC: performance and analysis of an active congestion control algorithm for heterogeneous networks

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Abstract

Transmission control protocol (TCP) is a reliable transport layer protocol widely used in the Internet over decades. However, the performances of existing TCP congestion control algorithms degrade severely in modern heterogeneous networks with random packet losses, packet reordering and congestion. In this paper, we propose a novel TCP algorithm named TCP-ACC to handle all three challenges mentioned above. It integrates 1) a real-time reorder metric for calculating the probabilities of unnecessary Fast Retransmit (FRetran) and Timeouts (TO), 2) an improved RTT estimation algorithm giving more weights to packets that are sent (as opposed to received) more recently, and 3) an improved congestion control mechanism based on packet loss and reorder rate measurements. Theoretical analysis demonstrates the equilibrium throughput of TCP-ACC is much higher than traditional TCP, while maintaining good fairness with regard to other TCP algorithms in ideal network conditions. Extensive experimental results using both network emulators and real network show that the algorithm achieves significant throughput improvement in heterogeneous networks as compared with other state-of-the-art algorithms.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (61125102) and the State Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61133008).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Jun Zhang & Jiangtao Wen

  2. TCP ENGINES, San Diego, CA, 92101, USA

    Yuxing Han

Authors
  1. Jun Zhang
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  2. Jiangtao Wen
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  3. Yuxing Han
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jun Zhang.

Additional information

Jun Zhang received the BS degree in computer science and technology from Tsinghua University, China in 2010. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in computer science and technology in Tsinghua University. His research interests are in the areas of transmission control protocol, data center, and wireless network communications.

Jiangtao Wen received the BS, MS, and PhD degrees (with honors), all in electrical engineering, from Tsinghua University, China in 1992, 1994, and 1996, respectively. From 1996 to 1998, he was a staff research fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), USA, where he conducted cutting-edge research on multimedia coding and communications. Many of his inventions there were later adopted by international standards such as H.263, MPEG, and H.264. Since 2009, he has been a professor at the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, China. He is a fellow of IEEE.

Yuxing Han received the BE degree in electrical engineering at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), China in 2006, and obtained her PhD degree at University of California, Los Angeles, USA in 2011. Her research interests include next generation cellular systems, cognitive radio systems, network modeling, and compressive sensing algorithms.

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Zhang, J., Wen, J. & Han, Y. TCP-ACC: performance and analysis of an active congestion control algorithm for heterogeneous networks. Front. Comput. Sci. 11, 1061–1074 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11704-016-5482-x

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