Performance of concurrent multipath transmissions — Measurements and model validation

Concurrent multipath transport layer mechanisms have gained recently increasing interest in research and standardization because of the potential for bandwidth aggregation, load balancing and increased reliability. Multihomed end devices may benefit from IP-based multipath protocols like Multipath TCP or Concurrent Multipath Transmission via SCTP. In the future, concurrent multipath transport might be transparent to network and transport layer protocols as proposed by the concept of Transport Virtualization. This mechanism enables the pooling of heterogeneous transmission technologies or physical paths. However, the selection and application of multiple paths and its impact on the transmission is non-intuitive. Our prior work on transport virtualization discussed the impact of delay diversity of pooled paths on concurrent data transmissions. A mathematical model was introduced enabling the analysis of packet re-ordering that occurs due to different path delays. In this paper we extend our investigations by validating the previously presented analytical and simulative models with measurements performed in Planetlab Europe and the Etomic testbed.