Using TCP congestion control to improve the performances of optical burst switched networks

We propose using a modified TCP decoupling approach as a congestion control mechanism for optical burst switched networks. The TCP decoupling approach is a novel way that is applicable to TCP congestion control of any traffic flow (which can be an aggregate) in a network. Since this approach is generic, it has found applications in several areas. In the optical burst switching (OBS) area, because the basic mechanism of the TCP decoupling approach matches the mechanism of the OBS very well, use of a modified TCP decoupling approach to control the traffic load handled by an OBS switch and to regulate the timing in sending bursts is proposed. Our simulation results show that this approach enables an OBS switch to achieve high link utilization while maintaining very low packet (burst) drop rate.