Simulation and Visualization of Transmission Control Protocol's (TCP) Flow-Control and Multi-Home Options

Transmission control protocol (TCP) is used for reliable data transfer on the Internet today and has been carrying more than 90% of the Internet traffic. One of its main strengths is its use of flow control algorithms that allows TCP to reduce the rate at which it sends data if network congestion is encountered. TCP multi-home option makes it possible to handle multiple local and remote address pairs in one TCP session and to survive network outages by finding out an alternative network path. However, flow control algorithms arc complex and hard to understand; traditional methods of teaching how flow control algorithms work, such as viewing sliding window illustrations, do not illustrate flow control algorithm dynamics well; a better method would be to use a TCP simulator that not only visualizes TCP multi-home option and flow control algorithm operations happening in real time, but also allows users to experiment with simulating different flow control algorithms under different congestion conditions. Simulation modeling allows system developers and analysts to predict the performance of existing or proposed systems under different configurations or operating policies. The OMNeT++ tool is used to simulate and predict the performance of the TCP's issues involved in this arc pointed out. The aim of this paper is to produce a visual TCP simulator that acts as an interactive teaching/demonstration tool by allowing users to experiment with simulating different TCP flow control and multi-home options algorithms over different data traffic conditions that are similar to those encountered on the Internet in real life.