OPN09-05: An SLA-Aware Transport Protocol for High Throughput Wide Area Ethernet Services

This paper aims to enhance the transport services of Ethernet MANs and WANs by addressing the throughput optimization issue at the edge of the network. Ethernet services convert Ethernet from a best effort technology to a service level agreement (SLA) driven carrier-grade technology, extending the simplicity and flexibility of Ethernet beyond the LAN to the MAN/WAN. Ethernet virtual private line (EVPL) provides a point-to-point virtual leased line that takes advantage of Ethernet´s statistical multiplexing to share resources among multiple customers. Although current bandwidth allocation schemes are able to reassign idle capacity and provide QoS at link layer, the end-to-end throughput in the application layer is not optimized. The performance of TCP over SLA driven Ethernet services is not adequate, because the mechanisms of TCP are designed for best effort networks. In this paper, a novel SLA-aware transport protocol is proposed to increase the end- to-end throughput for wide area Ethernet services. The performance of the proposed protocol is compared with traditional TCP through theoretical analysis and simulations.