An active approach to consolidating TCP and ABR flow control

The active network paradigm no longer views data as passive but as a program, or a parameter to a program in the network elements. Active networks provide a framework for network management computations to be performed within the network elements. In this paper, we consider the available bit rate service (ABR) as an active networked service. In this study, we use the transmission control protocol (TCP) protocol data unit (PDU) to control the TCP and ABR source buffers. We demonstrate that the performance of TCP is improved by injecting, at the switch, duplicate acknowledgements which throttle TCP and yet maintain existing TCP and ABR dynamics.