Queueing analysis of transport-layer connections in an internet environment

The performance of transport-layer connections in an internet environment is investigated. The scenario of multiple-sender hosts and a single-receiver host, which are connected through a transport network, is considered. Application-layer processes in the sender hosts generate messages which are transferred to a peer process in the receiver host. Messages are transferred over window flow-controlled end-to-end connections between transport-layer entities. Buffer space in the host machines is assumed to be limited; thus process blocking can occur. The performance model developed considers the system to be comprised of three submodels: sender, receiver, and communications control. The analysis technique develops a queuing model for each submodel. Approximate results are obtained through an iterative solution method, using the results of one submodel as inputs to the others. The accuracy of the approximate analysis is discussed and performance characteristics are presented