Modeling TCP performance with proxies

Abstract-- This paper investigates the TCP dynamics and performance over proxies that shorten the TCP feedback loop by segmenting the end-to-end connection. Such proxies are often used to improve TCP performance, e.g., a splitting/spoofing proxy in the satellite communication, and more commonly, a web cache. By analysis, we attempt to develop a basic understanding of the properties of TCP dynamics when such proxies are used, and further obtain certain design principles of systems involving such proxies. We present simple models capturing some features of the proxy performance in both the lossless and lossy scenarios. Due to the complexity involved, detailed analysis is only available in the lossless scenario, and our discussion in the lossy scenario is largely limited to steady state behavior. However we are able to obtain useful insight through such analysis. We identify conditions under which using a proxy provides significant or marginal performance gain by investigating factors inc...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2004
• Where: COMCOM
• Authors: Navid Ehsan, Mingyan Liu
• Keywords: COMCOM 2004, Lossy Scenario, Performance, TCP Dynamics