Performance analysis of MSP: feature-rich high-speed transport protocol

A performance analysis of the MultiStream Protocol (MSP), a feature-rich flexible transport protocol designed to meet the needs of high-performance applications, is presented. The analysis presents the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of several different protocol mechanisms, such as packet or block mode data transfer. It is based on the processing complexity associated with executing each protocol function. Results show that a feature-rich transport protocol can be implemented in which the protocol control processing overhead is not prohibitive to providing high performance to an application. Instead, the benefits of a lean protocol are achieved because the protocol services better fit application requirements. Also, the primary bottleneck for data transfer is shown to be the complexity associated with error control, which can reduced through the technique of transmitting packets in blocks