TCP/ATM Experiences in the MAGIC Testbed


Benjamin J. Ewy, Joseph B. Evans, Victor S. Frost, and Gary J. Minden
Telecommunications & Information Sciences Laboratory
Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
The University of Kansas
Lawrence KS 66045-2228


Abstract

This paper describes performance measurements taken in the MAGIC gigabit testbed relating to the performance of TCP in wide area ATM networks. The behavior of TCP with and without cell level pacing is studied. In particular, we focus on results that indicate that the TCP rate control mechanism alone is inadequate for congestion avoidance and control in wide-area gigabit networks. We also present results showing that TCP augmented by cell-level pacing addresses these problems and allows the full bandwidth capacity to be utilized. These results demonstrate the viability of high performance distributed systems based on wide area ATM networks given the proper ATM traffic management infrastructure.

A Postscript Version of the full paper.


MAGIC Gigabit Testbed Home Page
ACTS ATM Internetwork Page


bewy@tisl.ukans.edu