TCP management over OBS using burst segmentation and segment retransmission

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) technology offers a promising solution for the next generation optical Internet. Since, TCP protocol is the most dominant transport protocol for the Internet, it is essential to address the implementation of TCP over the OBS technology. The main consideration in TCP performances over OBS is the interaction between the TCP congestion control mechanism and OBS-specific schemes. Different studies have considered TCP issues in OBS networks. It is noteworthy to note that all developed studies have not considered contention resolution at OBS layer, which may have a significant impact on TCP performances. In this paper, we address the implementation of TCP protocol over a novel OBS network architecture supported by a specific contention resolution scheme based on wavelength conversion, burst segmentation and optical buffering. For sake of better performances, we propose a segment retransmission scheme in which segments lost in case of contention resolution failure are retransmitted at the OBS layer. Also, we develop an analytic model for the mathematical analysis of TCP performances over OBS networks implementing these schemes. Finally, simulation experiments are conducted to validate the proposed approach and evaluate its performances.