cmpSCTP: An Extension of SCTP to Support Concurrent Multi-Path Transfer

This paper introduced cmpSCTP, a transport layer solution for concurrent multi-path transfer that modifies the standard Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP). The cmpSCTP aims at exploiting SCTP´s multi-homing capability by selecting several best paths among multiple available network interfaces to improve data transfer rate to the same multi-homed device. Through the use of path monitoring and packet allotment techniques, cmpSCTP tries to transmit given amount of packets at corresponding path as its ability. At the same time, cmpSCTP updates the transmission strategy based on the real-time information of all of paths. Using cmpSCTP´s flexible path management capability, we may switch the flow between multiple paths automatically to realize seamless path handover. Extensive simulations under different scenarios using OPNET verified that cmpSCTP can effectively enhance transmission efficiency and highlighted the superiority of cmpSCTP against the other SCTP´s extension implementations under performance indexes such as throughput, handover latency, packet delay, and packet loss.