UP Paper 1200 US-M-RDOWN
Increasing TCP Throughput with an Enhanced Control Plane
Brassil,JackHP Laboratories
Zhao,BenUC Santa Barbara
Yalagandula,PraveenHP Laboratories
Wu,ErikSparta Inc.
Thomas,RoshanSparta Inc.
Sharma,PuneetHP Laboratories
Schwab,StephenSparta Inc.
Roberts,LawrenceAnagran Inc.
Reed,DavidHP Laboratories
Peterson,LarryPrinceton University
McGeer,RickHP Laboratories
Mark,BrianGeorge Mason University
Joseph,AnthonyUC Berkeley
Henderson,AlexAnagran Inc.
Bavier,AndyPrinceton University
CHART seeks to improve the performance of operational DoD internets through the introduction of an intelligent network overlay. TCP performance -- particularly between CONUS and forward-deployed components located in combat theaters -- can be severely degraded due to high loss rates and long latencies. The lack of current information about network conditions in the core NIPRnet/SIPRnet further compounds the problem, because end hosts lack the data required to make intelligent routing decisions. Deploying CHART's enhanced control plane improves measurement and monitoring of unreliable communication links to provide current network state information to routers implemented in both software and hardware, enabling intelligent routing around faulty links. We describe the design of software and hardware routers sharing a common network 'sensing' infrastructure, the implementation of end-to-end Quality of Service via flow state aware routers, and a new network-aware TCP/IP stack for Linux end systems. Performance test results demonstrate that bulk file transfer throughput can be increased by as much as an order of magnitude in networks with severely impaired communication links.
Jack Brassil received the B.S. degree from the Polytechnic Institute of New York in 1981, the M.Eng. degree from Cornell University in 1982, and the Ph.D. degree from the University of California, San Diego, in 1991, all in electrical engineering. Dr. Brassil has been with Hewlett-Packard Laboratories since 1999. He currently is a Research Scientist and Program Manager in Princeton, NJ. Prior to that he managed a research team in Palo Alto, CA, investigating internet streaming media, content distribution architectures, and communication networks and protocols. Before joining HP he held multiple research positions at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill and Holmdel, NJ. Dr. Brassil is an IEEE Fellow and a member of the IEEE Communications Society.