Multipath TCP Research Articles

Gate Switch Selection for In-Band Controlling in Software Defined Networking

In software defined networking (SDN), control connections between switches and the aqfd 4controller are established by either an in-band or an out-of-band control mechanism. In this paper, we focus on in-band controlling. In an in-band controlling, a switch constructs a control connection (usually TCP connection) to the controller through a data path. To ensure path availability, better load balancing, and robustness, multi-path TCP (MPTCP) has been introduced for control channels instead of TCP. Since MPTCP has multiple subflows, each subflow may acquire different paths to fully utilize MPTCP for control connection of SDN. Essentially, the controller should be connected to multiple gate switches first and then, each non-gate switch fabricates an MPTCP connection with multiple subflows to the controller through the gate switches. In such MPTCP-based in-band controlling environment, the selection of gate switches is crucial in achieving availability and reliability of the control channel. For example, multiple subflows through the chosen gate switches should be disjoint as much as possible. In this paper, we first illustrate an objective of in-band controlling and then, we propose a heuristic algorithm to compute a gate switch set that achieves the objective. To be specific, we want to make the subflows disjoint and short lengthed for high availability. We investigate the performance of the proposed algorithm with the two baseline algorithms, i.e., exhaustive search and random search . Through extensive simulation, we demonstrate that the proposed algorithm performs much better than the random search and is comparable to the exhaustive search.

Low-Latency Scheduling in MPTCP

The demand for mobile communication is continuously increasing, and mobile devices are now the communication device of choice for many people. To guarantee connectivity and performance, mobile devices are typically equipped with multiple interfaces. To this end, exploiting multiple available interfaces is also a crucial aspect of the upcoming 5G standard for reducing costs, easing network management, and providing a good user experience. Multi-path protocols, such as multi-path TCP (MPTCP), can be used to provide performance optimization through load-balancing and resilience to coverage drops and link failures, however, they do not automatically guarantee better performance. For instance, low-latency communication has been proven hard to achieve when a device has network interfaces with asymmetric capacity and delay (e.g., LTE and WLAN). For multi-path communication, the data scheduler is vital to provide low latency, since it decides over which network interface to send individual data segments. In this paper, we focus on the MPTCP scheduler with the goal of providing a good user experience for latency-sensitive applications when interface quality is asymmetric. After an initial assessment of existing scheduling algorithms, we present two novel scheduling techniques: the block estimation (BLEST) scheduler and the shortest transmission time first (STTF) scheduler. BLEST and STTF are compared with existing schedulers in both emulated and real-world environments and are shown to reduce web object transmission times with up to 51% and provide 45% faster communication for interactive applications, compared with MPTCP's default scheduler.

Security Atacks in Multipath TCP: A Study

Security Atacks in Multipath TCP: A Study

Security Atacks in Multipath TCP: A Study.

Security Atacks in Multipath TCP: A Study.

The simulation study on the multipath adaptive video transmission

The article presents simulation studies of multipath video transmission implemented as a live monitoring system based on adaptive streaming mechanisms. The transmission network consists of the Wi-Fi infrastructure and a single LTE cell. Both wireless networks are used during the operation of the video monitoring system. The analysis of the obtained results allows us to compare the features of two currently used multipath transmission protocols, MultiPath Quick UDP Internet Connections (MPQUIC) and MultiPath TCP (MPTCP) in the context of their use in adaptive video streaming systems. Also, the article contains a summary of the perceived advantages and disadvantages of using several transmission networks simultaneously for the implementation of video surveillance and monitoring systems.

Performance Evaluation of Multipath TCP Scheduling Algorithms

One of the goals of 5G is to provide enhanced mobile broadband and enable low latency in some use cases. To achieve this aim, the Internet Engineering Task Force has proposed the Multipath TCP by utilizing the feature of dual connectivity in 5G, where a 5G device can be served by two different base stations. However, the path heterogeneity between the 5G device and the server may cause a packet out-of-order problem. The researchers proposed a number of scheduling algorithms to tackle this issue. This paper introduces the existing algorithms, with the aim to make a thorough comparison between the existing scheduling algorithms and provide the guidelines for designing new scheduling algorithms in 5G, we have conducted an extensive set of emulation studies based on the real Linux experimental platform. The evaluation covers a wide range of network scenarios to investigate the impact of different network metrics, namely, RTT, buffer size, and file size on the performance of existing widely deployed scheduling algorithms.

Performance comparison between progressive mobility prediction using hidden Markov model and multipath transmission control protocol

Performance comparison between progressive mobility prediction using hidden Markov model and multipath transmission control protocol

PO-MPTCP: Priorities-Oriented Data Scheduler for Multimedia Multipathing Services

With the diversified wireless network access technology and large-scale equipment of multinetwork interface devices expanding, network transmission performance for multi-homed terminals has been widely concerned by academic circles. More and more scholars have paid attention to Multipath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP) as one of the representative methods for studying path transmission performance. However, their studies ignore the impact of dynamic network environments on data transmission performance and seldom consider the priority of data transmission. Undoubtedly, not prioritizing packets will have a dramatic effect on the users experience in the heterogeneous networks. In this paper, we propose a novel priority-aware streaming media multipath data scheduler mechanism (PO-MPTCP) to achieve the following goals: (1) detecting the priority of all streaming media data; (2) achieving multiattribute-aware path evaluation and switching mechanism; (3) introducing a path-quality priority-driven data distribution mechanism to improve streaming multipath transmission performance. The simulation experiment shows that PO-MPTCP proposed by this paper improves the transmission performance of streaming media and reduces the transmission delay. For the result of simulation experiment, it is easy for us to find that PO-MPTCP is more efficient in data delivery than the standard MPTCP mechanism.

Multipath TCP for V2I communication in SDN controlled small cell deployment of smart city

Vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) connectivity enables a variety of safety, infotainment, and mobility applications in smart cities. However, these applications require “always best and seamless connectivity”, which constitutes a key challenge in the context of available radio access and core network technologies. Multipath TCP (MPTCP) in multi-radio access technologies can be an emerging solution to meet the requirements of TCP-based services. Since MPTCP enables a vehicle to use multiple network interfaces and IP paths simultaneously, MPTCP seems a better option than legacy TCP in heterogeneous networks (HetNets). Software Defined Networking (SDN) with its unique features such as its centralized control, programmability, and flexibility, can be beneficial for mobility management and performance requirements for vehicular communication. Although studies exist, that explore the performance of MPTCP and SDN separately for V2I context, a combination of these two are unexplored. In this article, we evaluate the performance of MPTCP for V2I connectivity in SDN controlled small cells of DSRC and Wi-Fi using the Mininet-WiFi emulator. Our experimental study reveals that issues related to Layer-2 handover in Wi-Fi and flow installation by the SDN controller play a key role. If these two issues can be handled wisely in SDN, MPTCP can offer benefits to V2I connectivity in small cells, such as Wi-Fi and DSRC. We also propose an approach for rule installation to V2I connectivity in the software-defined vehicular network.

Improving Multipath TCP Performance over WiFi and Cellular Networks: An Analytical Approach

A complete understanding of the dynamics of Multipath TCP (MPTCP) over Cellular and WiFi networks is still lacking. This is a highly challenging issue, as a consequence of the complex interdependencies between the losses, packet reordering due to heterogeneous wireless channel features, errors, and link layer retransmissions, as well as their (joint) influence on MPTCP's control mechanism. In this paper, we develop a comprehensive approach that is capable of assessing the performance of long-lived MPTCP flows with joint WiFi and Cellular network access, taking into account the diverse characteristics of both types of networks. Relying on a parallel queueing model, we develop a framework that features the controllable network parameters, such as the retransmission limit and the buffer sizes, so as to capture their impact on the TCP-level performance. We include a variety of numerical and simulation results highlighting various non-trivial findings and insights for adaptive MPTCP design. In particular, we design a novel MPTCP algorithm to exploit the route heterogeneity, and demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is capable of learning the network's characteristics. It also identifies the improved MPTCP window increment parameters for any given set of channel errors, retransmission limits, and buffer sizes.

Energy-efficient scheduler for MPTCP data transfer with independent and coupled channels

Over the last few years, one can observe a shift in preferences to employ wireless media, including WiFi and cellular, rather than wired technologies for the communication purposes. Since even simple networking devices are nowadays equipped with a few communication interfaces, the user’s experience can be elevated by simultaneous transmission over different paths, as offered by the recently standardized Multipath TCP (MPTCP). This paper addresses the problem of optimal load distribution among the interfaces available at a networking device, e.g., a mobile phone, with the objective of minimizing the overall energy expenditure. Depending whether the corresponding data paths are unrelated or influence each other, two cases are considered and two dynamic allocation algorithms are designed. The design procedures are set on the formal grounds of convex optimization and extremum seeking control. An experimental comparison with the earlier MPTCP scheduling solutions shows superiority of the proposed algorithms in terms of energy requirements. In particular, it is shown that in the case of coupled channels, the energy savings can reach several percent without throughput degradation.

MPTCP Meets FEC: Supporting Latency-Sensitive Applications Over Heterogeneous Networks

Over the past years, TCP has gone through numerous updates to provide performance enhancement under diverse network conditions. However, with respect to losses, little can be achieved with legacy TCP detection and recovery mechanisms. Both fast retransmission and retransmission timeout take at least one extra round trip time to perform, and this might significantly impact the performance of latency-sensitive applications, especially in lossy or high delay networks. While forward error correction (FEC) is not a new initiative in this direction, the majority of the approaches consider FEC inside the application. In this paper, we design and implement a framework, where FEC is integrated within TCP. Our main goal with this design choice is to enable latency sensitive applications over TCP in high delay and lossy networks, but remaining application agnostic. We further incorporate this design into multipath TCP (MPTCP), where we focus particularly on heterogeneous settings, considering the fact that TCP recovery mechanisms further escalate head-of-line blocking in multipath. We evaluate the performance of the proposed framework and show that such a framework can bring significant benefits compared with legacy TCP and MPTCP for latency-sensitive real application traffic, such as video streaming and web services.

MCubic(Multipath Cubic)의 설계, 구현 및 다중 경로 TCP의 성능 평가에 관한 연구

MCubic(Multipath Cubic)의 설계, 구현 및 다중 경로 TCP의 성능 평가에 관한 연구

PTP: Path-specified transport protocol for concurrent multipath transmission in named data networks

Named Data Networking (NDN) is a promising Future Internet architecture to support content distribution. Its inherent addressless routing paradigm brings valuable characteristics to improve the transmission robustness and efficiency, e.g. users are enabled to download content from multiple providers concurrently. However, multipath transmission NDN is different from that in Multipath TCP, i.e. the “paths” in NDN are transparent to and uncontrollable by users. To this end, the user controls the traffic on all transmission paths as an entirety, which leads to a noticeable problem of low bandwidth utilization. In particular, the congestion of a certain path will trigger traffic reduction on other transmission paths that are underutilized. Some solutions have been proposed by letting routers balance loads of different paths to avoid congesting a certain path prematurely. However, the complexity of obtaining an optimal load balancing solution (i.e. solving a Multi-Commodity Flow problem) becomes higher with increasing network size, which limits universal NDN deployments.This paper introduces a compromise solution—Path-specified Transport Protocol (PTP). PTP supports both the label switching and the addressless routing schemes. Specifically, the label switching scheme allows users to precisely control the traffic on each transmission path, and the addressless routing scheme maintains the valuable feature of retrieving content from any provider to guarantee robustness. As the traffic on a transmission path can be explicitly controlled by consumers, load balancing is no longer needed in routers, which reduces the computational burden on routers and consequently increases the system scalability. The experimental results show that PTP significantly increases users’ downloading rates and improves network throughput.

Next Generation New Radio Small Cell Enhancement: Architectural Options, Functionality and Performance Aspects

The 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) has been engaged in further advancing the evolved universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) terrestrial radio access network (E-UTRAN) and UTRAN based radio access network technologies. New radio (NR) is the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) endeavor for outlining and standardization of the 5th generation (5G) advanced radio access technology. 3GPP has released the first set of 5G NR standards, i.e., the non-standalone 5G radio specifications. As long-term evolution (LTE) technology is massively deployed and broadly accepted, the transition from LTE to 5G is very critical, and it is of maximal importance that the backward compatibility of 5G with LTE is considered. 3GPP has identified several architecture options for 5G. This article gives an overview of the NR architecture options, their deployment scenarios, and the key migration paths. The LTE-NR dual connectivity (DC) is presented. This DC scenario is unique in the sense that DC is being endowed for two different generations of 3GPP radio access technologies. We, further, present the integration of multipath transmission control protocol (MPTCP) with LTE-NR DC and DC-like aggregation, i.e., 3GPP-non-3GPP interworking to bring in the advantages of MPTCP in terms of link robustness, reliability and dynamic mapping between the traffic flows and the available paths. Finally, we discuss the future research and standardization directions of the next-generation networks.

Adaptive offloading with MPTCP for unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance system

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are utilized in the surveillance and reconnaissance system of hazardous locations by utilizing the feature that they can freely move away from space constraints. Furthermore, the application scope of the UAVs expanded not only for simple image data collection but also for analysis of complex image data without human intervention. However, mobile UAV systems, such as drone, have limited computing resources and battery power which makes it a challenge to use these systems for long periods of time. In this paper, we propose an AOM, Adaptive Offloading with MPTCP (Multipath TCP), architecture for increasing drone operating time. We design not only the task offloading management module via the MPTCP to utilize heterogeneous network but also the response time prediction module for mission critical task offloading decision. Through the prototype drone implementation, we show the AOM reduces the task response time and increases drone operation time.

Modeling Transport Layer Protocol Behaviour to Improve Data Center Network Performance

Today, there is a generalized standard usage of internet for all.The devices via multiple technologies that facilitates to provide few communication methods to scholars to work with. By forming multiple paths in the data center network, latest generation data centers offer maximum bandwidth with robustness. To utilize this bandwidth, it is necessary that different data flows take separate paths. In brief, a single-path transport seems inappropriate for such networks. By using Multipath TCP, we must reconsider data center networks, with a diverse approach as to the association between topology, transport protocols, routing. Multipath TCP allows certain topologies that single path TCP cannot use. In newer generation data centers, Multipath TCP is already deployable using extensively deployed technologies such as Equal-cost multipath routing. But, major benefits will come when data centers are specifically designed for multipath transports. Due to manifold of technologies like Cloud computing, social networking, and information networks there is a need to deploy the number of large data centers. While Transport Control Protocol is the leading Layer-3 transport protocol in data center networks, the operating conditions like high bandwidth, small-buffered switches, and traffic patterns causes poor performance of TCP. Data Center TCP algorithm has newly been anticipated as a TCP option for data centers which address these limitations. It is worth noting that traditional TCP protocol.

Decoupled TCP Extension for VLC Hybrid Network

In recent years, visible light communication (VLC), considered as a compelling technology to solve the spectrumproblemoftraditional radiofrequency (RF)communication,hasattractedattentioninscientificandindustrial communities. However, for a variety of reasons, the designoftheVLCuplinkschemehasbecomeasignificantly challenging problem. In this paper, in order to address the preceding problem, we propose a novel decoupled TCPextension protocol for a VLC hybrid network. Different from regular TCP protocol, decoupling operation to TCP transmission in our new protocol can break through TCP’s limitationtoaunidirectionallinkandallowuserstofullyutilize network resources in a VLC hybrid network consisting of a VLC downlink and a complementary uplink. Furthermore, today most hosts are equipped with several interfaces, so we combine decoupled TCP (DETCP) with multipath TCP (MPTCP)and extendDETCPtoa multipath communication situation. Using several links simultaneously ensures more efficient and reliable data transmission in a VLC network. BasedonourimplementationoftheLinuxkernel,ourexperimental results show that our protocol can effectively accomplish the decouple work and achieve high throughput. In addition, several factors that influence the performance are analyzed based on our measurement results.

Experimental performance analysis of multipath TCP path characteristics in streaming UHD HEVC-dash over wireless networks

The multiple interfaces in modern devices today have given great promise in enhancing multimedia service delivery over wireless networks. However, the IP coupled nature of the TCP/IP protocol inhibits the simultaneous use of these interfaces. Multipath TCP (MPTCP), a protocol undergoing IETF standardization has been developed to simultaneously use multiple interfaces for service delivery over the Internet. In this paper, we studied the effect of MPTCP paths characteristics in streaming Ultra High Definition, High Efficiency Video Codec (UHD HEVC-DASH) while connected to multiple wireless access points. The findings though specific instead of general, reveal that under balanced and unbalanced network paths, MPTCP offers good Quality of Experience (QoE) compared to SPTCP. However, with variability in latency, and packet loss between paths, MPTCP underperforms compared to SPTCP in terms of video buffering in the unbalanced network case, and high packet retransmission rate in either balanced or unbalanced network paths.

Network reliability for multipath TCP networks with a retransmission mechanism under the time constraint

ABSTRACTIt is essential to reduce data latency and guarantee quality of service for modern computer networks. The emerging networking protocol, Multipath Transmission Control Protocol, can reduce data latency by transmitting data through multiple minimal paths (MPs) and ensure data integrity by the packets retransmission mechanism. The bandwidth of each edge can be considered as multi-state in computer networks because different situations, such as failures, partial failures and maintenance, exist. We evaluate network reliability for a multi-state retransmission flow network through which the data can be successfully transmitted by means of multiple MPs under the time constraint. By generating all minimal bandwidth patterns, the proposed algorithm can satisfy these requirements to calculate network reliability. An example and a practical case of the Pan-European Research and Education Network are applied to demonstrate the proposed algorithm.