Vardoyan, G. | Search NASA

DOE OSTI2016

High-Performance data flows using analytical models and measurements

The combination of analytical models and measurements provide practical configurations and parameters to achieve high data transport rates: (a) buffer sizes and number of parallel streams for improved memory and file transfer rates, (b) Hamilton and Scalable TCP congestion control modules for memory transfers in place of default CUBIC, and (c) direct IO mode for Lustre file systems for wide-area transfers. Conventional parameter selection using full sweeps is impractical in many cases since it takes months. By exploiting the unimodality of throughput profiles, we developed the d-w method that significantly reduces the number of measurements needed for parameter identification. This heuristic method was effective in practice in reducing the measurements by about 90% for Lustre and XFS file transfers.

Rao, Nageswara S↗

DOE OSTI2016

Models of TCP in high-BDP environments and their experimental validation

In recent years, the computer networking community has seen a steady growth in bandwidth-delay products (BDPs). Several TCP variants were created to combat the shortcomings of legacy TCP when it comes to operation in high-BDP environments. These variants, among which are CUBIC, STCP, and H-TCP, have been extensively studied in some empirical contexts, and some analytical models exist for CUBIC and STCP. However, since these studies have been conducted, BDPs have risen even more, and new bulk data transfer tools have emerged that utilize multiple parallel TCP streams. In view of these new developments, it is imperative to revisit the question: Which congestion control algorithms are best adapted to current networking environments? In order to help resolve this question, we contribute the following: (i) using first principles, we develop a general throughput-prediction framework that takes into account buffer sizes and maximum window constraints; (ii) we validate the models using measurements and achieve low prediction errors; (iii) we note differences in TCP dynamics between two experimental configurations and find one of them to be significantly more deterministic than the other; we also find that CUBIC and H-TCP outperform STCP, especially when multiple streams are used; and (iv) we present preliminary results for modelling multiple TCP streams for CUBIC and STCP.

Vardoyan, G.↗