TY BTech Trimester-VII (AY 2019-2020)

Computer Science and Engineering

Disclaimer:
a. Information included in these slides came from multiple sources. We have tried our
best to cite the sources. Please refer to the references to learn about the sources,
when applicable.
b. The slides should be used only for preparing notes, academic purposes (e.g. in teaching
a class), and should not be used for commercial purposes.
Unit-III
TRANSPORT LAYER

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 2

Unit-III

 Transport Layer Services: Transport layer functionalities,

Sockets,
 Transport Layer Protocols: UDP, RTP, TCP: 3- way Handshake,
TCP Transmission Policy (Sliding Window),
 TCP Congestion Control Algorithms: Leaky Bucket, Token
Bucket, Congestion Avoidance, Quality of Service
Books Referred:
 Behrouz A. Forouzan, ‘Data Communications and Networking’, 5th Edition, McGraw- Hill Publishing Company
 Tanenbaum A. S., ‘Computer Networks’, Pearson Education , 4th Edition, 2008, ISBN-978-81-7758-165-2

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 3

Introduction
The transport layer in the TCP/IP suite is located
between the application layer and the network
layer.
It provides services to the application layer and
receives services from the network layer.
The transport layer acts as a liaison between a
client program and a server program, a process-
to-process connection.
The transport layer is the heart of the TCP/IP
protocol suite.

Figure: Transport Layer in OSI and TCP/IP Model

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 4

Transport Layer Services
The transport layer provides
efficient, reliable, and cost-effective data transmission service to its
users.
It provides a process-to-process communication between two
application layers.
A transport-layer protocol provides for logical communication
between application processes running on different hosts.
Host-to-host communication vs. process-to-process communication.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 5

Transport Layer Services (Cntd.)
Process to process delivery –
End-to-end Connection between hosts –
Multiplexing and Demultiplexing –
Congestion Control –
open loop congestion control
closed loop congestion control
Data integrity and Error correction –
Flow control –
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 6
Transport Primitives
Transport entity -
The (logical) relationship of the network,
transport, and application layers is
illustrated in Figure.
On the sending side, the transport layer
converts the application-layer messages it
receives from a sending application process
into transport-layer packets, known as
transport-layer segments in Internet
terminology.

Figure: The (logical) relationship of the network, transport,

and application layers

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 7

Transport Primitives (Cntd.)
a segments.
a transport-layer header.
a network-layer packet (a datagram).

Figure: Nesting of segments, packets, and frames.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 8
Transport Primitives (Cntd.)
To allow users to access the transport service, the transport layer must provide, a
transport service interface.
The transport service is similar to the network service, but there are also some
important differences. The main difference is that the network service is intended to
model the service offered by real networks, warts and all. Real networks can lose
packets, so the network service is generally unreliable. The connection-oriented
transport service, in contrast, is reliable.
Of course, real networks are not error-free, but that is precisely the purpose of the
transport layer—to provide a reliable service on top of an unreliable network.
As an aside, the transport layer can also provide unreliable (datagram) service.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 9

Transport Primitives (Cntd.)
Transport Protocols –
 Internet Protocol (IP) provides a packet
delivery service across an internet
 However, IP cannot distinguish between
multiple processes (applications) running
on the same computer
 Fields in the IP datagram header identify
only computers
 A protocol that allows an application to
serve as an end-point of communication is
known as a transport protocol or an end-
to-end protocol
 The TCP/IP protocol suite provides two
transport protocols:
1. The User Datagram Protocol (UDP)
2. The Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)
Figure: Position of transport-layer protocols in the TCP/IP protocol
suite
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 10
Transport Primitives (Cntd.)
Transport Protocols Services –
 Each protocol provides a different type of service and should be used
appropriately.
 UDP
UDP is an unreliable connectionless transport-layer protocol used for its simplicity and efficiency
in applications where error control can be provided by the application-layer process.
 TCP
TCP is a reliable connection-oriented protocol that can be used in any application where
reliability is important.
 SCTP
SCTP is a new transport-layer protocol that combines the features of UDP and TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 11

Transport Layer Vs. Network Layer
IP provides logical communication between hosts.
The IP service model is a best-effort delivery service. IP is said to be an
unreliable service.
On The other hand, transport layer protocols like UDP and TCP have The
most fundamental responsibility to extend IP’s delivery service between
two end systems to a delivery service between two processes running on
the end systems. Extending host-to-host delivery to process-to-process
delivery is called transport-layer multiplexing and demultiplexing.
UDP and TCP also provide integrity checking by including error detection
fields in their segments’ headers.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 12

Port Numbers
On a TCP/IP network the IP address
identifies the device e.g. computer.
However an IP address alone is not
sufficient for running network applications,
as a computer can run multiple
applications and/or services.
Just as the IP address identifies the
computer, The network port identifies the
application or service running on the
computer.

Figure: TCP/IP ports and sockets

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 13
Port Numbers (Cntd.)
A transport-layer protocol usually has several responsibilities. One is
to create a process-to-process communication; these protocols use
port numbers to accomplish this.
Port numbers provide end-to-end addresses at the transport layer and
allow multiplexing and demultiplexing at this layer, just as IP
addresses do at the network layer.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 14

Port Numbers (Cntd.)
Analogy – Street address and Flat numbers in residential address.
A port number uses 16 bits and so can therefore have a value from 0 to
65535 decimal.
Port numbers are divided into ranges as follows:
 Port numbers 0-1023 – Well known ports – e.g. Web servers normally use port
80 and SMTP servers use port 25 (see previous diagram).
 Ports 1024-49151 – Registered Port.
 Ports 49152-65535 – Dynamic Ports – These are used by client programs. Also
known as ephemeral ports.
Following figure gives some common port numbers being used.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 15
Port Numbers (Cntd.)

Figure: Some well-known ports used with UDP and TCP

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 16
Port Numbers (Cntd.)

Figure: Port Addressing

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 17
Sockets
A process sends messages into, and
receives messages from, the network
through a software interface called a
socket.
Figure illustrates socket
communication between two
processes that communicate over the
Internet. (Figure assumes that the
underlying transport protocol used by
the processes is the Internet’s TCP
protocol.)
Figure: Application processes, sockets, and
underlying transport protocol
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 18
Sockets (Cntd.)
A socket is a software concept
for a connection. Sockets enable
applications to connect to a
Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol
(TCP/IP) network.
An application running on a host
creates a socket or doorway to
connect with an application on
another host. Messages pass
through this socket or doorway.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 19

Sockets (Cntd.)
Sockets enable virtual TCP or UDP communication channels between hosts.
This example shows three applications requiring three TCP communication channels:
Two channels for each of the two web browsers acting as HTTP clients, and one for
the email application acting as an SMTP client.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 20

Sockets (Cntd.)
Berkeley Socket:
1. Berkeley sockets is an application programming interface (API) for
Internet sockets and UNIX domain sockets.
2. It is used for inter-process communication (IPC).
3. It is commonly implemented as a library of linkable modules.
4. It originated with the 4.2BSD UNIX released in 1983.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 21

Sockets (Cntd.)
Primitives used in Berkeley Socket:

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 22

Multiplexing & Demultiplexing
Whenever an entity accepts items from more than one source, this is referred to as
multiplexing (many to one); whenever an entity delivers items to more than one
source, this is referred to as demultiplexing (one to many).
Objective is to extend the host-to-host delivery service provided by the network
layer to a process-to-process delivery service for applications running on the hosts.
The transport layer at the source performs multiplexing; the transport layer at the
destination performs demultiplexing. (See Figure)

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 23

Multiplexing & Demultiplexing (Cntd.)

Figure: Multiplexing and demultiplexing

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 24
Multiplexing & Demultiplexing (Cntd.)
Transport-layer multiplexing requires
1. that sockets have unique identifiers, and
2. that each segment have special fields that indicate the socket to which the
segment is to be delivered.
These special fields, are the source port number field and the destination port
number field. (This port addressing concept we have discussed earlier. The UDP and
TCP segments have other fields as well.)
How the transport layer could implement the demultiplexing service?

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 25

Connectionless and Connection Oriented Protocol
A transport-layer protocol, like a network-layer protocol, can provide two types of
services: connectionless and connection-oriented.
The nature of these services at the transport layer, however, is different from the
ones at the network layer.
 At the network layer, a connectionless service may mean different paths for different datagrams
belonging to the same message; connection-oriented means dedicated path established before
communication initiated.
 At the transport layer, we are not concerned about the physical paths of packets (we assume a
logical connection between two transport layers). Connectionless service at the transport layer
means independency between packets; connection-oriented means dependency.
The connectionless protocol is UDP.
The connection-oriented protocol is TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 26

Connectionless and Connection Oriented Protocol
(Cntd.)
Connectionless Service:
 (See the Figure).

Figure: Connectionless service

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 27
Connectionless and Connection Oriented Protocol
(Cntd.)
Connection-oriented Service:
 (See the Figure).

Figure: Connection-oriented service

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 28
Connectionless and Connection Oriented Protocol
(Cntd.)

Figure: Connectionless and connection-oriented service represented as FSMs

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 29
Elements of Transport Protocols
In some ways,
transport protocols
resemble the data
link protocols we
have already
studied.
However, significant
differences between
the two also exist.
These differences
are due to major
dissimilarities
between the
environments in
which the two Figure: (a) Environment of the data link layer.
protocols operate. (b) Environment of the transport layer.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 30

Elements of Transport Protocols (Cntd.)
Other Differences -
 User Oriented:
 Guarantee Service:
 Addressing:
 Connection establishment:
 Storage capacity of the subnet:
 We need dynamic flow control mechanism:
 Addressing:

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 31

Elements of Transport Protocols (Cntd.)

Figure: TSAPs, NSAPs, and transport connections.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 32
Elements of Transport Protocols (Cntd.)
Connection Establishment: (Works only for TCP)

Figure: TSAPs, NSAPs, and transport connections.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 33
User Datagram Protocol [UDP]
Connectionless Transport Protocol.
UDP transmits segments consisting of an 8-byte fixed size header followed by the
payload.
The header is shown below

Figure: The UDP header.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 34
User Datagram Protocol [UDP] (Cntd.)
Question: The following is the content of a UDP header in hexadecimal format.
CB84000D001C001C
 What is the source port number?
 What is the destination port number?
 What is the total length of the user datagram?
 What is the length of the data?
 Is the packet directed from a client to a server or vice versa?
 What is the client process?

Solution: Try to Solve It…….

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 35
User Datagram Protocol [UDP] (Cntd.)
Solution:
CB84000D001C001C
 The source port number is the first four hexadecimal digits (CB84)16, which means
that the source port number is 52100.
 The destination port number is the second four hexadecimal digits (000D)16, which
means that the destination port number is 13.
 The third four hexadecimal digits (001C)16 define the length of the whole UDP
packet as 28 bytes.
 The length of the data is the length of the whole packet minus the length of the
header, or 28 − 8 = 20 bytes.
 Since the destination port number is 13 (well-known port), the packet is from the
client to the server.
 The client process is the Daytime (see slide no. 19).
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 36
User Datagram Protocol [UDP] (Cntd.)
UDP Services:

 Process to process communication – using socket address

 Connectionless services
 Flow Control – Not present
 Error Control – Not present
 Checksum – based on pseudo header, UDP header, and data (Can be Optional)
 Congestion Control – Not present
 Encapsulation & Decapsulation
 Queuing
 Multiplexing & Demultiplexing
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 37
User Datagram Protocol [UDP] (Cntd.)
UDP Applications:
 UDP is suitable for a process that requires simple request-response communication
with little concern for flow and error control.
 UDP is suitable for a process with internal flow- and error-control mechanisms. For
example, the Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP).
 UDP is a suitable transport protocol for multicasting.
 UDP is used for management processes such as SNMP.
 UDP is used for some route updating protocols such as Routing Information Protocol
(RIP).
 UDP is normally used for interactive real-time applications that cannot tolerate
uneven delay between sections of a received message. E.g. multimedia applications.
 Client-server RPC is one area in which UDP is widely used.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 38
Real-Time Transport Protocol [RTP]
 Client-server RPC is one area in which UDP is widely used. Another one is for real-
time multimedia applications.
 Multimedia applications such as Internet radio, Internet telephony, music-on-
demand, videoconferencing, video-on-demand, and other are reinventing more or
less the same real-time transport protocol.
 Thus generic real-time transport protocol for multiple applications would be a good
idea. i.e. RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol).
 Aspects of real-time transport
 for transporting audio and video data in packets.
 the processing that takes place, mostly at the receiver, to play out the audio and video at the
right time.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 39

Real-Time Transport Protocol [RTP] (Cntd.)

Figure: (a) The position of RTP in the protocol stack. (b) Packet nesting.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 40
Real-Time Transport Protocol [RTP] (Cntd.)
 RTP normally runs in user space over UDP (in the operating system).
 Its works as follows
Multimedia RTP RTP Through UDP IP
Fed into Multiplexing Ethernet
application library Packets Sockets Packets Packets

 Because of this design, it is a little hard to say which layer RTP is in. (see previous
figure)
 looks like an application protocol – because it runs in user space and is linked to the application
program.
 looks like a transport protocol – because it is a generic, application independent protocol that just
provides transport facilities

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 41

Real-Time Transport Protocol [RTP] (Cntd.)
 Basic function – multiplex several real-time data streams onto a single stream of
UDP packets.
 Unicasting or Multicasting can be done.
 There are no special guarantees about delivery, and packets may be lost, delayed,
corrupted, etc.
 The RTP format contains several features to help receivers work with multimedia
information.
 Sequence Numbering
 Encoding for Different profiles such as audio, video etc.
 Time stamping

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 42

Real-Time Transport Protocol [RTP] (Cntd.)

Figure: The RTP header.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 43
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP]
 Specifically designed to provide a reliable end-to-end byte stream over an unreliable
internetwork. Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is a connection-oriented, reliable
protocol.
 Was designed to dynamically adapt to properties of the internetwork and to be
robust in the face of many kinds of failures.
 Connection-Oriented Service – explicitly defines connection establishment, data
transfer, and connection teardown phases.
 Reliability – Combination of GBN and SR protocols is used, uses checksum (for error
detection), retransmission of lost or corrupted packets, cumulative and selective
acknowledgments, and timers.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 44

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Services:
 Process to process communication – using socket address
 Stream delivery service –
 Sending/Receiving process to deliver/obtain data as a stream of bytes.
 Sending and Receiving buffers
 TCP Segments
 Full Duplex Communication
 Multiplexing and Demultiplexing – multiplexing at sender & demultiplexing at
receiver. However connection need to be established for each pair of processes
 Connection-Oriented service – Connection establishment, data transfer, connection
termination
 Reliable Service – use of acknowledgement.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 45
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: Stream delivery.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 46
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: Sending and receiving buffers.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 47
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: TCP segments.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 48
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Features:
 Numbering System –
 Byte Number –
 The bytes of data being transferred in each connection are numbered by TCP.
 Numbering is independent in each direction.
 The numbering starts with an arbitrarily generated number.

 Sequence Number –
 defines the number assigned to the first data byte contained in that segment.

 Acknowledgement Number –
 defines the number of the next byte a party expects to receive.
 The acknowledgment number is cumulative.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 49

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Segment:

Figure: TCP segment format.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 50
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Connection:
 In TCP, connection-oriented transmission requires three phases: connection
establishment, data transfer, and connection termination.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 51

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Connection Establishment: Three way Handshaking

Figure: Connection establishment using three-way handshaking.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 52
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Connection Establishment: SYN flooding attack
 TCP Connection establishment phase is susceptible to SYN flooding attack.
 belongs to a group of security attacks known as a denial of service attack.
 Defending against SYN flooding attacks
 Some implementations of TCP have strategies to alleviate the effect of a SYN attack.
 Some have imposed a limit of connection requests during a specified period of time.
 Some try to filter out datagrams coming from unwanted source addresses.
 Recent strategy postpone resource allocation until the server can verify that the connection
request is coming from a valid IP address, by using a cookie.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 53

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Data Transfer:
 Bidirectional data transfer – data and acknowledgements can be
transferred.
 Pushing Data:
 Application program on sender can request a push operation, means that the
sending TCP must not wait for the window to be filled. It must create a segment
and send it immediately.
 Urgent Data:
 There are occasions in which an application program needs to send urgent bytes.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 54

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: Data transfer.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 55
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Connection Termination: Three way Handshaking

Figure: Connection termination using three-way handshaking.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 56
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Connection Termination: Half Close

Figure: Half-close.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 57
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Connection Management Modeling: State Transition Diagram

Figure: State transition diagram.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 58
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Connection Management Modeling: State Transition Diagram - States of TCP

Figure: States for TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 59
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Connection Management Modeling: State Transition Diagram - Scenarios

Figure: Transition diagram with half-close connection termination.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 60
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
TCP Connection Management Modeling: State Transition Diagram - Scenarios

Figure: Time-line diagram for a common scenario.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 61
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Flow Control:

Figure: Data flow and flow control feedbacks in TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 62
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Flow Control (Cntd.):
 Flow control balances the rate a producer creates data with the rate a
consumer can use the data.
 TCP separates flow control from error control.
 To achieve flow control, TCP forces the sender and the receiver to adjust
their window sizes, although the size of the buffer for both parties is
fixed when the connection is established.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 63

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP:
 TCP uses two windows (send window and receive window) for each
direction of data transfer.
 Window management in TCP decouples the issues of acknowledgement
of the correct receipt of segments and receiver buffer allocation.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 64

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: TCP Sliding window example.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 65
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: An example of flow control.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 66
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Send Window

Figure: Send window in TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 67
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Send Window (Cntd.)
 The send window in TCP is similar to the one used with the Selective-
Repeat(SR) protocol, but with some differences:
 The window size in SR is the number of packets, but the window size in TCP is the
number of bytes.
 In some implementations, TCP can store data received from the process and send
them later, but we assume that the sending TCP is capable of sending segments
of data as soon as it receives them from its process.
 Selective-Repeat protocol may use several timers for each packet sent, but TCP
protocol uses only one timer.
 The opening, closing, and shrinking of the send window is controlled by
the receiver. (Check example scenario discussed above)
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 68
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Receive Window

Figure: Receive window in TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 69
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Receive Window (Cntd.)
 The receive window opens and closes; in practice, the window should never shrink.
 There are two differences between the receive window in TCP and the one we used
for SR:
 TCP allows the receiving process to pull data at its own pace.
 The receive window size is then always smaller than or equal to the buffer size, as shown in Figure.
 The receive window size determines the number of bytes that the receive window can accept from the sender before
being overwhelmed (flow control). In other words, the receive window size, normally called rwnd, can be
determined as:
𝒓𝒘𝒏𝒅 = 𝒃𝒖𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒓 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆 − 𝒏𝒖𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒂𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒚𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅
 The major acknowledgment mechanism in TCP is a cumulative acknowledgment
(Acknowledgements can be sent only when all the data up to the byte acknowledged have been
received.) announcing the next expected byte to receive. (in this way TCP looks like GBN)

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 70

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Opening and Closing Windows
 The send window closes (moves its left wall to the right) when a new
acknowledgment allows it to do so. The send window opens (its right wall moves to
the right) when the receive window size (rwnd) advertised by the receiver allows it
to do so (new ackNo + new rwnd > last ackNo + last rwnd). The send window shrinks
in the event this situation does not occur.
 The receive window closes (moves its left wall to the right) when more bytes arrive
from the sender; it opens (moves its right wall to the right) when more bytes are
pulled by the process. We assume that it does not shrink (the right wall does not
move to the left).

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 71

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Shrinking of Windows
 The receive window cannot shrink.
 The send window, on the other hand, can shrink if the receiver defines a value for
rwnd that results in shrinking the window.
 Some implementations do not allow shrinking of the send window. The receiver
needs to keep the following relationship between the last and new acknowledgment
and the last and new rwnd values to prevent shrinking of the send window.
𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒄𝒌𝑵𝒐 + 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒓𝒘𝒏𝒅 ≥ 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒄𝒌𝑵𝒐 + 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒓𝒘𝒏𝒅

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 72

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Silly Window Syndrome
 The receive window cannot shrink.
 The send window, on the other hand, can shrink if the receiver defines a value for
rwnd that results in shrinking the window.
 Some implementations do not allow shrinking of the send window. The receiver
needs to keep the following relationship between the last and new acknowledgment
and the last and new rwnd values to prevent shrinking of the send window.
𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒂𝒄𝒌𝑵𝒐 + 𝒏𝒆𝒘 𝒓𝒘𝒏𝒅 ≥ 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒄𝒌𝑵𝒐 + 𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒓𝒘𝒏𝒅

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 73

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Silly Window Syndrome
 Silly window syndrome is a problem that can arise in poor implementations of the
transmission control protocol (TCP).
 It can lead to a significant reduction in network performance and can indicate an
overloaded server or a sending application that is limiting throughput.
 There are situations, resulting sending of data in very small segments, which reduces
the efficiency of the operation.
 when either the sending application program creates data slowly
 or the receiving application program consumes data slowly
 or both.
 Inefficiently using the capacity of the network. The inefficiency is even worse after
accounting for the data-link layer and physical-layer overhead. This problem is called
the silly window syndrome.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 74
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Silly Window Syndrome (Cntd.)
 Syndrome Created by Sender:
 The sending TCP may create a silly window syndrome if it is serving an application program that
creates data slowly.
 The solution is to prevent the sending TCP from sending the data byte by byte. The sending TCP
must be forced to wait and collect data to send in a larger block.
 How long should the sending TCP wait? – elegant solution is Nagle’s algorithm.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 75

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Silly Window Syndrome (Cntd.)
 Syndrome Created by Sender (Cntd.):
 Nagle’s algorithm :
1. The sending TCP sends the first piece of data it receives from the sending application program
even if it is only 1 byte.
2. After sending the first segment, the sending TCP accumulates data in the output buffer and
waits until either the receiving TCP sends an acknowledgment or until enough data have
accumulated to fill a maximum-size segment. At this time, the sending TCP can send the
segment.
3. Step 2 is repeated for the rest of the transmission. Segment 3 is sent immediately if an
acknowledgment is received for segment 2, or if enough data have accumulated to fill a
maximum-size segment.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 76

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Windows in TCP (Cntd.): Silly Window Syndrome (Cntd.)
 Syndrome Created by the Receiver:
 The receiving TCP may create a silly window syndrome if it is serving an
application program that consumes data slowly.
 Two solutions have been proposed to prevent the silly window syndrome.
 Solution 1: Clark’s solution is to send an acknowledgment as soon as the data arrive, but to announce a
window size of zero until either there is enough space to accommodate a segment of maximum size or
until at least half of the receive buffer is empty.
 Solution 2: The second solution is to delay sending the acknowledgment. This means that when a
segment arrives, it is not acknowledged immediately. The receiver waits until there is a decent amount
of space in its incoming buffer before acknowledging the arrived segments. The delayed
acknowledgment prevents the sending TCP from sliding its window. After the sending TCP has sent the
data in the window, it stops. This kills the syndrome. Delayed acknowledgment also has another
advantage: it reduces traffic. There also is a disadvantage in that the delayed acknowledgment may
result in the sender unnecessarily retransmitting the unacknowledged segments.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 77

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control:
 TCP is a reliable transport-layer protocol. TCP provides reliability using error control.
 Error control includes mechanisms for
 detecting and resending corrupted segments
 resending lost segments
 storing out-of-order segments until missing segments arrive
 and detecting and discarding duplicated segments.
 Error control in TCP is achieved through the use of three simple tools:
 Checksum
 Acknowledgment
 and Time-out.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 78

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Checksum
 Each segment includes a checksum field, which is used to check for a corrupted
segment.
 If a segment is corrupted, as detected by an invalid checksum, the segment is
discarded by the destination TCP and is considered as lost.
 TCP uses a 16-bit checksum that is mandatory in every segment.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 79

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Acknowledgment
 TCP uses acknowledgments to confirm the receipt of data segments.
 Control segments that carry no data, but consume a sequence number, are also
acknowledged.
 ACK segments do not consume sequence numbers and are not acknowledged.
 Acknowledgment Type:
 Cumulative Acknowledgment (ACK) – positive cumulative acknowledgment
 Selective Acknowledgment (SACK) – A SACK does not replace an ACK, but reports additional
information to the sender.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 80

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Common Rules for Generating Acknowledgments
 Rule 1:
When end A sends a data segment to end B, it must include (piggyback) an
acknowledgment that gives the next sequence number it expects to receive. This
rule decreases the number of segments needed and therefore reduces traffic.
 Rule 2:
When the receiver has no data to send and it receives an in-order segment (with
expected sequence number) and the previous segment has already been
acknowledged, the receiver delays sending an ACK segment until another segment
arrives or until a period of time (normally 500 ms) has passed. In other words, the
receiver needs to delay sending an ACK segment if there is only one outstanding in-
order segment. This rule reduces ACK segments.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 81

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Common Rules for Generating Acknowledgments (Cntd.)
 Rule 3:
When a segment arrives with a sequence number that is expected by the receiver,
and the previous in-order segment has not been acknowledged, the receiver
immediately sends an ACK segment. In other words, there should not be more than
two in-order unacknowledged segments at any time. This prevents the unnecessary
retransmission of segments that may create congestion in the network.
 Rule 4:
When a segment arrives with an out-of-order sequence number that is higher than
expected, the receiver immediately sends an ACK segment announcing the
sequence number of the next expected segment. This leads to the fast
retransmission of missing segments (discussed later).

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 82

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Common Rules for Generating Acknowledgments (Cntd.)
 Rule 5:
When a missing segment arrives, the receiver sends an ACK segment to announce
the next sequence number expected. This informs the receiver that segments
reported missing have been received.
 Rule 6:
If a duplicate segment arrives, the receiver discards the segment, but immediately
sends an acknowledgment indicating the next in-order segment expected. This
solves some problems when an ACK segment itself is lost.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 83

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Retransmission
 The heart of the error control mechanism is the retransmission of
segments.
 When retransmission is possible?: When a segment is sent, it is stored in a
queue until it is acknowledged.
 When the retransmission timer expires, or
 When the sender receives three duplicate ACKs for the first segment in the
queue, that segment is retransmitted.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 84

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Retransmission (Cntd.)
 Retransmission after retransmission time-out (RTO):
 Sending TCP maintains one retransmission time-out (RTO) for each connection.
 When the timer matures, i.e. times out, TCP resends the segment.
 The value of RTO is dynamic in TCP and is updated based on the round-trip time (RTT) of
segments.
 Retransmission after Three Duplicate ACK Segments:
 The previous rule about retransmission of a segment is sufficient if the value of RTO is not large.
 Goal in this retransmission method is to allowing senders to retransmit without waiting for a time
out
 if three duplicate acknowledgments (i.e., an original ACK plus three exactly identical copies)
arrive for a segment, the next segment is retransmitted without waiting for the time-out.
 This feature is called fast retransmission.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 85
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Out of Order segments
 Data may arrive out of order and be temporarily stored by the receiving TCP, but TCP
guarantees that no out-of-order data are delivered to the process.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 86

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios
 Normal operation

Figure: Normal operation.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 87
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios (Cntd.)
 Lost segment

Figure: Lost segment.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 88
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios (Cntd.)
 Fast retransmission

Figure: Fast retransmission.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 89
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios (Cntd.)
 Delayed Segment
 Duplicate Segment
 Automatically Corrected Lost ACK
 Lost Acknowledgment Corrected by Resending a Segment

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 90

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios (Cntd.)
 Lost acknowledgment

Figure: Lost acknowledgment.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 91
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios (Cntd.)
 Lost acknowledgment corrected by resending a segment

Figure: Lost acknowledgment corrected by resending a segment.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 92
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Error Control (Cntd.): Scenarios (Cntd.)
 Deadlock Created by Lost Acknowledgment
Lost acknowledgments may create deadlock if they are not properly handled.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 93

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)

Figure: Policies that affect congestion at different layers.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 94
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control:
 Congestion control refers to techniques and mechanisms that can either prevent
congestion before it happens or remove congestion after it has happened.
 In the Internet, congestion control could be implemented either in the network layer
or the transport layer.
 The congestion problem was clearly identified in the later 1980s and the researchers
who developed techniques to solve the problem opted for a solution in the transport
layer.
 Adding congestion control to the transport layer makes sense since this layer
provides a reliable data transfer and avoiding congestion is a factor in this reliable
delivery.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 95

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control (cntd.):
 The difference between flow control and congestion control is that Flow control, in
contrast, relates to the traffic between a particular sender and a particular receiver.
Its job is to make sure that a fast sender cannot continually transmit data faster than
the receiver is able to absorb it and Congestion control has to do with making sure
the network is able to carry the offered traffic. It is a global issue, involving the
behavior of all the hosts and routers.
 We can divide congestion control mechanisms into two broad categories: open-loop
congestion control (prevention) and closed-loop congestion control (removal).

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 96

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Open-Loop Congestion Control [Prevention]
 In open-loop congestion control, policies are applied to prevent congestion before it
happens.
 In these mechanisms, congestion control is handled by either the source or the
destination.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 97

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Open-Loop Congestion Control [Prevention] (Cntd.)
 There is a brief list of policies that can prevent congestion.
1. Retransmission Policy
2. Window Policy
3. Acknowledgement Policy
4. Discarding Policy
5. Admission Policy

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 98

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Closed-Loop Congestion Control [Removal]
 Closed-loop congestion control mechanisms try to alleviate congestion after it
happens.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 99

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Closed-Loop Congestion Control [Removal] (Cntd.)
 Several mechanisms have been used by different protocols. We describe a few of
them here.
1. Backpressure
2. Choke Packet
3. Implicit Signaling
4. Explicit Signaling

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 100

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Window
 We have already seen that, the size of the send window is controlled by the receiver
using the value of rwnd, which is advertised in each segment traveling in the
opposite direction. This strategy ensures that the receiver window is never
overwhelmed.
 But this doesn’t mean that the congestion is not at all present, congestion may not
be present at ends, but there is possibility that it may be present at intermediate
router as it may be receiving data from multiple senders.
 TCP needs to worry about congestion in the middle because many segments lost
may seriously affect the error control.
 More segment loss means resending the same segments again, resulting in
worsening the congestion, and finally the collapse of the communication.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 101

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Window (Cntd.)
 The congestion in the router is in the IP territory and should be taken care of by IP.
However, IP is a simple protocol with no congestion control. Therefore TCP, itself,
needs to be responsible for this problem.
 TCP needs to define policies that accelerate the data transmission when there is no
congestion and decelerate the transmission when congestion is detected.
 To control the number of segments to transmit, TCP uses another variable called a
congestion window, cwnd, whose size is controlled by the congestion situation in the
network.
 The cwnd variable and the rwnd variable together define the size of the send
window in TCP. The first is related to the congestion in the middle (network); the
second is related to the congestion at the end. The actual size of the window is the
minimum of these two.
𝑨𝒄𝒕𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝒘𝒊𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒘 𝒔𝒊𝒛𝒆 = 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒎𝒖𝒎 (𝒓𝒘𝒏𝒅, 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅)
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 102
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Detection
 How a TCP sender can detect the possible existence of congestion in the network?
 Sender rely on feedback from the other end to detect congestion: ACKs.
 The TCP sender uses the occurrence of two events as signs of congestion in the
network: time-out and receiving three duplicate ACKs.
 Time Out - If a TCP sender does not receive an ACK for a segment or a group of segments before
the time-out occurs, it assumes that the corresponding segment or segments are lost and the loss
is due to congestion.
 Duplicate ACKs - receiving of three duplicate ACKs (four ACKs with the same acknowledgment
number). When a TCP receiver sends a duplicate ACK, it is the sign that a segment has been
delayed, but sending three duplicate ACKs is the sign of a missing segment.
 The congestion in the case of three duplicate ACKs can be less severe than in the
case of time-out.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 103
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies
 TCP’s general policy for handling congestion is based on three algorithms:
 Slow Start Algorithm: Exponential Increase
 Congestion Avoidance Algorithm: Additive Increase
 Fast Recovery Algorithm
 Policy Transition : three versions of TCP
 Tahoe TCP
 Reno TCP
 New Reno TCP

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 104

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Slow Start – Exponential Increase:
 Based on the idea that the size of the congestion window (cwnd) starts with one maximum
segment size (MSS), but it increases one MSS each time an acknowledgment arrives.
 MSS is a value negotiated during the connection establishment, using an option of the same
name.
 the size of the congestion window in this algorithm is a function of the number of ACKs arrived
and can be determined as follows.
𝑰𝒇 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝑪𝑲 𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔, 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 + 𝟏.
 If we look at the size of the cwnd in terms of round-trip times (RTTs), we find that the growth rate
is exponential in terms of each round trip time, which is a very aggressive approach:
𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝟏 → 𝟐𝟎
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟏 𝑹𝑻𝑻 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 + 𝟏 = 𝟏 + 𝟏 = 𝟐 → 𝟐𝟏
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟐 𝑹𝑻𝑻 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 + 𝟐 = 𝟐 + 𝟐 = 𝟒 → 𝟐𝟐
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟑 𝑹𝑻𝑻 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 + 𝟒 = 𝟒 + 𝟒 = 𝟖 → 𝟐𝟑
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 105
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Slow Start – Exponential Increase (Cntd.):
 A slow start cannot continue indefinitely. There must be a threshold to stop this phase. The
sender keeps track of a variable named ssthresh (slow-start threshold). When the size of the
window in bytes reaches this threshold, slow start stops and the next phase starts.
 slow-start strategy is slower in the case of delayed acknowledgments.
 The algorithm starts slowly, but grows exponentially.
 In the slow-start algorithm, the size of the congestion window increases exponentially until it
reaches a threshold. (See figure)

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 106

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Slow Start – Exponential Increase (Cntd.):

Figure: Slow start, exponential increase.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 107
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Congestion Avoidance – Additive Increase:
 increases the cwnd additively instead of exponentially.
 When the size of the congestion window reaches the slow-start threshold in the case where cwnd
= i, the slow-start phase stops and the additive phase begins.
 In this algorithm, each time the whole “window” of segments is acknowledged, the size of the
congestion window is increased by one. (Refer Figure)
 A window is the number of segments transmitted during RTT.
 The size of the congestion window in this algorithm is also a function of the number of ACKs that
have arrived and can be determined as follows:
𝑰𝒇 𝒂𝒏 𝑨𝑪𝑲 𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔, 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 = 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 + (𝟏/𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅).
 The size of the window increases only 𝟏/𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 portion of MSS (in bytes).

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 108

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Congestion Avoidance – Additive Increase (Cntd.):
 Size of the cwnd in terms of round-trip times (RTTs): the growth rate is linear in terms of each
round-trip time 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝒊
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟏 𝑹𝑻𝑻 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝒊 + 𝟏
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟐 𝑹𝑻𝑻 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝒊 + 𝟐
𝑨𝒇𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝟑 𝑹𝑻𝑻 → 𝑐𝑤𝑛𝑑 = 𝒊 + 𝟑
 In the congestion-avoidance algorithm, the size of the congestion window increases additively
until congestion is detected.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 109

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Congestion Avoidance – Additive Increase (Cntd.):

Figure: Congestion avoidance, additive increase.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 110
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Fast Recovery:
 The fast-recovery algorithm is optional in TCP. The old version of TCP did not use it, but the new
versions try to use it.
 It starts when three duplicate ACKs arrive, which is interpreted as light congestion in the
network.
 Like congestion avoidance, this algorithm is also an additive increase, but it increases the size of
the congestion window when a duplicate ACK arrives (after the three duplicate ACKs that trigger
the use of this algorithm).
𝑰𝒇 𝒂 𝒅𝒖𝒑𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝑨𝑪𝑲 𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔, 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 = 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 + (𝟏 / 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅).

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 111

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition:
Tahoe TCP:
 The early TCP.
 Used only two different algorithms in their congestion policy: slow start and congestion
avoidance.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 112

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition (Cntd.):
Tahoe TCP (cntd.):

Figure: FSM for Tahoe TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 113
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition (Cntd.):
Reno TCP:
 Newer version of TCP.
 added a new state to the congestion-control FSM, called the fast-recovery state.
 if a time-out occurs, TCP moves to the slow-start state (or starts a new round if it is already in
this state)
 if three duplicate ACKs arrive, TCP moves to the fast-recovery state and remains there as long as
more duplicate ACKs arrive. The fast-recovery state is a state somewhere between the slow-start
and the congestion-avoidance states.
 if a new (nonduplicate) ACK arrives, TCP moves to the congestion-avoidance state.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 114

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition (Cntd.):
Reno TCP (cntd.):

Figure: FSM for Reno TCP.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 115
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition (Cntd.):
New Reno TCP:
 An extra optimization on the Reno TCP.
 TCP checks to see if more than one segment is lost in the current window when three duplicate
ACKs arrive.
 When TCP receives three duplicate ACKs, it retransmits the lost segment until a new ACK (not
duplicate) arrives.
 If the new ACK defines the end of the window when the congestion was detected, TCP is certain
that only one segment was lost. However, if the ACK number defines a position between the
retransmitted segment and the end of the window, it is possible that the segment defined by the
ACK is also lost. New Reno TCP retransmits this segment to avoid receiving more and more
duplicate ACKs for it.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 116

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition (Cntd.):
Additive Increase, Multiplicative Decrease (AIMD):
 Out of the three versions of TCP, the Reno version is most common today.
 It has been observed that, in this version, most of the time the congestion is detected and taken
care of by observing the three duplicate ACKs.
 Even if there are some time-out events, TCP recovers from them by aggressive exponential
growth.
 That is, if we ignore the slow-start states and short exponential growth during fast recovery, the
TCP congestion window is:
1. when an ACK arrives (congestion avoidance): 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 = 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 + (𝟏 / 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅). (Additive Increase)
2. when congestion is detected: 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 = 𝒄𝒘𝒏𝒅 / 𝟐. (Multiplicative Decrease)
 This means that the congestion window size, after it passes the initial slow-start state, follows a
saw tooth pattern called additive increase, multiplicative decrease (AIMD). (See Figure)
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 117
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: Congestion Policies (Cntd.)
 Policy Transition (Cntd.):
Additive Increase, Multiplicative Decrease (AIMD):

Figure: Additive increase, multiplicative decrease (AIMD).

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 118
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Congestion Control: (Cntd.)
 Actual timeout events behavior: :
State Event Sender Action Comment
Slow Start (SS) New ACK Congestion Window = Congestion Window + MSS. Congestion Window doubles
received if (Congestion Window >= Threshold) set state to CA. every RTT.
Congestion New ACK Congestion Window = Congestion Window + Congestion Window
Avoidance (CA) received MSS(MSS/Congestion Window). increases by 1 MSS every
RTT.
SS or CA Triple Duplicate Threshold = Congestion Window/2. Fast recover; multiplicative
ACK Congestion Window = Threshold. set state to CA. decrease.
SS or CA Timeout Threshold = Congestion Window/2.
Congestion Window = 1 MSS. Set state to SS.
SS or CA Duplicate ACK Increment duplicate ACK count for segment.
received

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 119

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
 Multiple senders sending data streams quickly into network results in congestion,
which eventually leads to degraded performance of the network because of delayed
or lost packets.
 Therefore Controlling congestion is the combined responsibility of the network and
transport layers.
 Congestion occurs at routers so it is detected at network layer, however transport
layer traffic sent thorough network layer is mainly responsible for congestion.
 Therefore effective way to control congestion is to send packets slowly into network.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 120

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation:
 Our goal is not only to avoid congestion but also to find a good allocation of
bandwidth to the transport entities that are using the network.
 Good allocation of bandwidth ensures uses of all available bandwidth with
congestion avoidance.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 121

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation (Cntd.): Efficiency and Power
 the goodput (or rate of useful packets arriving at the receiver) as a function of the
offered load.
 the delay as a function of the offered load
Maximum Carrying Perfect (Ideal)
Capacity of Subnet
Desirable
(Controlled)

Packets
Delivered Congested
i.e. (Uncontrolled)
Throughput Packets
Sent
Figure: (a) Goodput and (b) delay as a function of offered load.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 122
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation (Cntd.): Efficiency and Power
 Kleinrock (1979) proposed the metric of power:

𝒍𝒐𝒂𝒅
𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓 =
𝒅𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒚

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 123

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation (Cntd.): Max-Min Fairness
 How to divide bandwidth between different transport senders?
 There are several considerations
1. What this problem has to do with congestion control? IP routers often have all connections
competing for the same bandwidth. In this situation, it is the congestion control mechanism that
is allocating bandwidth to the competing connections.
2. What a fair portion means for flows in a network?
3. We will adopt a notion of fairness that does not depend on the length of the network path.
 The form of fairness that is often desired for network usage is max-min fairness.
 An allocation is max-min fair if the bandwidth given to one flow cannot be increased
without decreasing the bandwidth given to another flow with an allocation that is
no larger.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 124

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation (Cntd.): Max-Min Fairness (Cntd.)

Figure: Max-min bandwidth allocation for four flows.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 125
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation (Cntd.): Convergence
 The congestion control algorithm converge quickly to a fair and efficient allocation of
bandwidth.
 Connections are always coming and going in a network, and the bandwidth needed
by a given connection will vary over time too.
 Because of the variation in demand, the ideal operating point for the network varies
over time. A good congestion control algorithm should rapidly converge to the ideal
operating point, and it should track that point as it changes over time.
 Check example on next slide……

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 126

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Desirable Bandwidth Allocation (Cntd.): Convergence (Cntd.)

Figure: Changing bandwidth allocation over time.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 127
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Regulating the Sending Rate:
 The sending rate may be limited by two factors.
 The first is flow control, in the case that there is insufficient buffering at the receiver. (Refer
figure)
 The second is congestion, in the case that there is insufficient capacity in the network. (Refer
figure)

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 128

Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Regulating the Sending Rate (Cntd.):

Figure: (a) A fast network feeding a low-capacity receiver. (b) A slow network feeding a high-capacity receiver.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 129
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Regulating the Sending Rate (Cntd.):
 The way that a transport protocol should regulate the sending rate depends on the
form of the feedback returned by the network. Different network layers may return
different kinds of feedback. The feedback may be explicit or implicit, and it may be
precise or imprecise.
Protocol Signal Explicit? Precise?
XCP Rate to use Yes Yes
TCP with ECN Congestion warning Yes No
FAST TCP End-to-end delay No Yes
Compound TCP Packet loss & end-to-end delay No Yes
CUBIC TCP Packet loss No No
TCP Packet loss No No
Figure: Signals of some congestion control protocols.
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 130
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Regulating the Sending Rate (Cntd.): Leaky Bucket
 A leaky bucket algorithm shapes bursty traffic into fixed-rate traffic by averaging the
data rate. It may drop the packets if the bucket is full.

Figure: Leaky bucket.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 131
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Regulating the Sending Rate (Cntd.): Token Bucket
 The token bucket allows bursty traffic at a regulated maximum rate.

Figure: Token bucket.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 132
Transmission Control Protocol [TCP] (Cntd.)
Regulating the Sending Rate (Cntd.): Combining Token Bucket and Leaky Bucket
 The two techniques can be combined to credit an idle host and at the same time
regulate the traffic. The leaky bucket is applied after the token bucket; the rate of
the leaky bucket needs to be higher than the rate of tokens dropped in the bucket.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 133

Quality of Service [QoS]
 Another way of looking at the transport layer is to regard its primary function as
enhancing the QoS (Quality of Service) provided by the network layer.
 If the network service is impeccable, the transport layer has an easy job. If however,
the network service is poor, the transport layer has to bridge the gap between what
the transport users want and what the network layer provides.
 The transport service may allow the user to specify preferred, acceptable, and
minimum values for various service parameters at the time a connection is setup.
 Now we will discuss some of the QoS parameters.

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 134

Quality of Service [QoS] (Cntd.)
QoS parameters
 The connection establishment delay:
 The connection establishment failure probability:
 Throughput:
 Transit delay:
 Residual error ratio:
 Protection:
 Priority:
 Resilience:

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 135

Questions on Transport Layer
1. List out services provide by transport layer?
2. Explain connection establishment and connection release in transport layer?
3. Draw TCP Header and explain all fields of TCP header?
4. Explain Real-time Transport Protocol in detail?
5. Explain concepts of Socket and Ports?
6. Explain Concept of 3-Way Handshaking?
7. Discuss UDP Applications?
8. Explain Silly Window Syndrome Problem?
9. How Error Control is achieved in TCP?
10. Draw and Explain UDP Frame format?
11. Discuss some of the QoS parameters at Transport Layer?
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 136
NPTEL Video Lecture Links on Transport Layer
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-3CSAkscYU
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBPDLGwfSUM
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8Wv3b7f9XY
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qclg6FY-FGM
5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUdfS70puWI
6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKHRbqwkMkg
7. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-nCA0tZU-0
8. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqzDTO9tdqs
9. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ex1s4lURto
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS202cWCc2Q
11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NxJGHXDOGc
12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHO9eeWxPxY
13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1y25BfOH9I
14. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7obJLN7FcQ
15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JExfKvUgrtI
8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 137
NPTEL Web Links on Transport Layer
1. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/106106091/36
2. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/106106091/37
3. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/106106091/38
4. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/106106091/39
5. https://nptel.ac.in/courses/106105080/32

8/27/2019 Computer Network Unit III 138