Source-ordering for improved TCP performance over load-balanced Optical burst-switched (OBS) networks

Recent advances in optical switching technology allows for the creation of networks in which data bursts are switched optically at each node, offering a greater degree of flexibility suitable for handling bursty Internet traffic. TCP-based applications account for a majority of data traffic in the Internet; thus understanding and improving the performance of TCP implementations over OBS networks is critical. Previously, several articles show that load-balanced routing improves lossperformance in OBS. In this paper, we identify the ill-effects of load-balanced OBS on TCP performance caused due to false time-outs and false fast-retransmit. We propose source-ordering mechanism that significantly improves TCP throughput. We evaluate the performance of the proposed mechanism over different TCP flavors, such as TCP Tahoe, TCP Reno, TCP SACK, and TCP Vegas over a load-balanced OBS network.