| The DoD is evolving towards an end-to-end, seamless, network-centric communications capability, with the corresponding communications network composed of multiple networks with very different characteristics (e.g., wireless and wired links, fixed and mobile network components). Such a network is typically described as “heterogeneous” or “hybrid”.
This paper gives an overview of an evaluation performed of alternative reliable unicast transport mechanisms in a hybrid network, which is required to support interoperability on an end-to-end basis. Options investigated include TCP (different flavors), the Space Communications Protocol Standards-Transport Protocol (SCPS-TP), and Performance Enhancing Proxies (PEPs) (also called Transport Layer Proxies). We first give an overview of the technical approach, which used Modeling and Simulation (M&S) with OPNET. We next describe the OPNET Network Model developed for this evaluation, our experiment plan, and results obtained from executing the plan. Finally, we identify several areas for further analyses.
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