A New Look at Buffer Sizing for Core Routers

Currently, all analyses on the buffer size of routers are based on a single router model of TCP connections and then the results are applied to any core router. As we know, a TCP link may be made up of one router or several routers, and the latter is more popular in the practical networks. Can we apply the conclusions directly to any router in the network? How the routers interact in the network and how can we design the routers practically? We found a queueing model for the routers on a TCP link, explore the interaction of routers, and discover that the link utilization is dependent on the number of routers and their buffer size. By boundary value analysis of the buffer size, we show that our formula can commendably predict the buffer size of routers under low offered load and the impact of interaction between routers is weak under light offered load.