TCP stands for
Transmission Control Protocol which works alongside the Internet Protocol to
form the foundation upon which the internet functions as a whole. It is one of
the main protocols, or set of rules that make up the Internet Protocol Suite,
otherwise known as TCP/IP. Transmission Control Protocol defines how computers
send packets of data to each other and do it in a reliable, orderly and
error-free way. The biggest internet applications run on it, are WWW, file
transfer, email and remote administration.
What is TCP
Optimization?
A TCP optimiser is a set of techniques
to get better data transfer on a network connection than the standard TCP
is capable of, without modifying other applications. Interestingly, although it
is a building block of the internet itself, it is yet to reach its optimal
level. Because of poor performances, communication service providers struggle
to provide high-quality experiences for subscribers at the cost of expensive resources
and dealing with operational inefficiencies.
How to improve TCP Performances
- The problem may lie more in congestion than bandwidth in case of a
TCP optimiser. Ideally, you want to get data from one computer to another
quickly, as opposed to the amount of data you transfer. There are
individual, non-cooperative senders and receivers constantly trying to
cram their data through.
Ramping might help
applications in uncongested networks pick up the pace, but increases the chance
of congestion with every new sender.
Optimizers that can
modify ramping behaviors to slow the initial ramp up or decrease the size of
the initial drop down can prevent congestion and preemptively slow down
transmissions as new traffic streams begin to ramp up.
- A Transmission Control Protocol server cannot process the
properties of the network through which it is delivering data, hence it is
designed in a way that is can understand and learn about the network’s
available bandwidth.
This entire process
is called the TCP SlowStart. It slowly transmits increasing amounts of data
until a certain point, after which it adjusts to match the characteristics of
the network.
The solution to
optimizing this would be by reducing the time to reach the available bandwidth
by splitting the latency between the subscriber network and the internet
network.
- Traffic shaping optimizers try to make sure that an organization
has autonomy over the ways in which bandwidth is consumed. Whether the
control is good or bad depends on how it is exercised: for users,
applications and devices to get bandwidth or limiting that bandwidth that
they receive.
Using this concept
to optimize TCP traffic would require debate over which applications and users
have priority claims during a congestion.
- When a TCP acceleration solution pre-acknowledges data on the
client’s behalf, it helps optimize TCP performance. The faster the server
notices the ACKs, the faster the data transmission and the SlowStart phase
can be accelerated.
Optimizing
performances
Changing demands,
shared resources and aggregation layers promote changes in network capacity.
This provides an opportunity for improving TCP performance. The server has to
pull back if bandwidth decreases and use available bandwidth easily when it
increases.
