Abstract

Session

TCP Analysis

Paper

7-3

Full Paper

ps.gz

Title

On the Propagation of Long-range Dependency in the Internet

Author(s)

Andras Veres (Ericsson)
Zsolt Kenesi (Technical University of Budapest)
Sandor Molnar (Technical University of Budapest)
Gabor Vattay (Eotvos University, Budapest)

Abstract:

In this paper we show that TCP congestion control can "conduct" self-similarity between distant areas of the Internet. This property of TCP is due to its congestion avoidance algorithm which can adapt to self-similar fluctuations on several timescales. We analyze the behavior and limitations of this conductivity and demonstrate that TCP can conduct self-similarity above a characteristic timescale depending on the end-to-end path properties. Our analysis reveals that a TCP path with multiple self-similar bottlenecks is also self-similar and is characterized by the largest Hurst exponent. Furthermore, we show that self-similarity of one TCP stream is passed on to all other TCP streams that it is multiplexed with. These mechanisms significantly contribute to widespread scaling reported in a number of recent papers. We support our arguments with a combination of analytic techniques, simulations and real Internet traffic measurements.