Improvement and Implementation of a Multi-Path Management Algorithm based on MPTCP

The core idea of the Multi-Path Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP) is to utilize multiple network connections by distributing payload data transmission among several sub-flows. Then, multiple paths in the underlying networks can be used to maximize the overall connection throughput. However, the concurrent transmission on only a subset of all possible sub-flows' aggregation can improve network performance, because of performance differences between the subflow. In this paper, we propose a new FullMesh algorithm based on Path Characteristic and Data Characteristic (PCDC), in which a Subflow Impact Factor (IF) is used as a subflow characteristic to predict the impact of a subflow on the overall throughput. Then, different path sets are adopted for different sizes of traffic. The PCDC algorithm is evaluated in the NORNET CORE testbed, comparing it to the FullMesh algorithm. Our research results show that the PCDC algorithm can improve the network throughput and reduce the overall completion time of small data streams.