Performance Evaluation of Concurrent Multipath Transmission : Measurements and Analysis

Abstract: Context: The data transmission mechanisms in a multi-homed network has gained importance in the past few years because of its potentials. Concurrent multipath transmission (CMT) technique uses the available network interfaces for transmission by pooling multiple paths together. It allows transport mechanisms to work independent of the underlying technology, which resembles the concept of Transport Virtualization (TV). As a result, in the development of Future Internet Architectures (FIA), TV plays a vital role. The leading commercial software technologies like IOS and Android have implemented such mechanisms in their devices. Multipath TCP and CMT-SCTP are the protocols under development which support this feature. The implementation and evaluation of CMT in real-time is complex because of the challenges like path binding, out-of-order packet delivery, packet-reordering and end-to-end delay. Objectives: The main objective of this thesis is to identify the possibilities of implementing CMT in real-time using multiple access technologies, and to evaluate the performance of transmission by measurements and analysis under different scenarios. Methods: To fulfill the objectives of the thesis, different methods are adopted. The development of CMT scenario is based on a spiral methodology where each spiral refers to different objectives. The sub-stages in a spiral are mainly implementation, observations, decisions and modifications. In order to implement and identify the possibilities of CMT in real-time, a deep literature study is performed beforehand. Results: The throughput of data transmission is less affected by varying the total number of TCP connections in transmission. Under different cases it is observed that the throughput has significant impact by varying number of efficient paths in transmission. Conclusion: From the experimental methodology of this work it can be observed that, CMT can be implemented in real-time using off-the-shelf components. Based on the experimentation results, it can be concluded that the throughput of transmission is affected by increasing number of paths. It can also be concluded that the total number of TCP connections during the transmission have less impact on throughput.