TCP buffer tuning and multiple socket connections to support high-performance services and standards for data transportation

Abstract

Sometimes the throughput of a single Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection can be disappointing. Slow connectivity in the internet is a highly frustrating experience to the end user; it also leads to waste of human and network resources. Network performance is a multi-faced problem and research has shown that tuning the parameters of TCP communication and the TCP configuration of the communication devices can lead to significant performance improvements. In this paper, a TCP/IP client-server software is proposed to examine how to adjust socket buffer sizes to maximise transfer rate for each socket connection and decide the maximum number of concurrent socket connections to maximise throughput of data transmission from one computer to another. The research findings, from the data collected for this research, concludes that optimising both socket buffer size and the number of connections, significantly improves data transportation services. To support high data rate transmission services, especially for a virtual private network, a standard, specifying appropriate communication parameters including number of socket connections, socket buffer size and TCP window size, is suggested.