The Eifel retransmission timer

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Abstract
We analyze two alternative retransmission timers for the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). We first study the retransmission timer of TCP-Lite which is considered to be the current de facto standard for TCP implementations. After revealing four major problems of TCP-Lite's retransmission timer, we propose a new timer, named the Eifel retransmission timer, that eliminates these. The strength of our work lies in its hybrid analysis methodology. We develop models of both retransmission timers for the class of network-limited TCP bulk data transfers in steady state. Using those models, we predict the problems of TCP-Lite's retransmission timer and develop the Eifel retransmission timer. We then validate our model-based analysis through measurements in a real network that yield the same results.

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