An experimental evaluation of TCP startup algorithms

How do flow startup mechanisms impact the performance of TCP?

Bachelor Thesis (2025)
Author(s)

M. Grigore (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)

Contributor(s)

FA Kuipers – Mentor (TU Delft - Networked Systems)

A. Zapletal – Mentor (TU Delft - Networked Systems)

A Katsifodimos – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Data-Intensive Systems)

Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
More Info
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Publication Year
2025
Language
English
Graduation Date
18-06-2025
Awarding Institution
Delft University of Technology
Project
['CSE3000 Research Project']
Programme
['Computer Science and Engineering']
Faculty
Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science
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Abstract

Most TCP data transfers in the Internet are short. This makes the startup algorithms an important factor that impacts TCP performance. Several startup algorithms have been developed. However, not a lot of research has been conducted into how these behave and interact when used for short flows. This paper aims to provide a thorough evaluation of these algorithms and their interactions under different network conditions, focusing on short flows and using ns-3. We have observed that JumpStart seems to outperform the other algorithms used when it comes to flow completion time for short flows. That is likely because it starts to send data with an aggressive initial congestion window and the flow is finished after the first few RTTs. However, JumpStart performs more poorly when the flows are longer. We have shown that JumpStart has a great potential to make communication more efficient in the Internet but further research has to be conducted into its behavior in more adversarial conditions that represent real life situations better.

Files

Research_paper_final.pdf
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