SDN for MPTCP: An enhanced architecture for large data transfers in datacenters

Multi-Path TCP (MPTCP) boosts network performance of applications by aggregating bandwidth over multiple paths using sub-flows of the same TCP connection. However, MPTCP suffers from three limitations: (1) it is an end-to-end protocol with no control over the network routes, and sub-flows might end up traversing the same links, (2) it has no dynamic control over choosing the optimal number of sub-flows to achieve maximum throughput, (3) its performance may degrade due to the large number of out-of-order caused by the heterogeneous paths traversed. Software Defined Networking (SDN), being centralized by nature, provides a global view of the network. When integrated with MPTCP, SDN improves resource utilization as we show in this paper. We propose an SDN-enhanced MPTCP that achieves higher data rates while transferring big-data in large-scale L2 networks such as those found in datacenters. Test results show a 20% to 30% increase in the throughput over regular MPTCP.