Studying TCP's Throughput and Goodput using NS

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• What is Throughput
  • Throughput is the amount of data received by the destination.

  • The Average Throughput is the throughput per unit of time

  • Example:

    Suppose a TCP receiver receives 60 M Bytes of data in 1 min, then:

    • The throughput of the period is 60 M Bytes

    • The average throughput is 60 M Bytes/min or 1 M Bytes/sec

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• Two kinds of Throughput
  • There are 2 kinds of throughputs in networking:
    1. Indiscriminant throughput (= the average amount data received by the receiver per unit time, regardless of whether the data is retransmission or not).

    2. Good throughput (= the average amount data received by the receiver per unit time that are NOT retransmissions).

  • The first kind of throughput is known as throughput in network literature.

  • The second kind of throughput is known as goodput in network literature.

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• Obtaining Throughput and Goodput information in NS simulations
  • Techniques to obtain the different throughput information in NS:
    1. The (indiscrimant) throughput information is obtained from trace information from queues in links obtained during the NS simulation run.

    2. The goodput information is obtained by attaching a trace application to the TCP Sink (receiving) Agent

  • We will first look at how to obtain (indiscrimant) throughput information next

  • Further down in this webpage (see: clickhere ), we will look at how to obtain goodput information

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• Obtain Throughput information from Trace Information of Queues
  • First, you make tell NS to print out trace information of a queue in a link, using:

       $ns  trace-queue  $src_node  $dest_node  $output_file    

    This will instruct NS to write packet arriving activities on the link ($src_node, $dest_node) to the output file $output_file

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  • Example:

      set n0 [$ns node]  set n1 [$ns node]  $ns duplex-link $n0 $n1   2Mb  10ms DropTail         set trace_file [open  "out.tr"  w]  $ns  trace-queue  $n0  $n1  $trace_file

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  • The output file has the following format:
    

  • Most important informations in the trace record:
    • Each line of the trace file corresponds to one event of packet activity

    • The first character of one trace record indicates the action:
      • +: a packet arrives at a queue (it may or may not be dropped !)
      • -: a packet leaves a queue
      • r: a packet is received into a queue (buffered)
      • d: a packet is dropped from a queue

    • The last 4 fields contains:
      • source id: id of sender (format is: x.y = node x and transport agent y)
      • receiver id: id of receiver (format is: x.y = node x and transport agent y)

      • sequence number: useful to determine if packet was new or a retransmission
      • packet id: is always increasing - usefule to determine the number of packets lossed.

    • The packet size contains the number of bytes in the packet

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  • Sample trace output:

       + 0.311227 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0       - 0.311227 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0   r 0.351867 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0

    • Trace record shows an arrival of a packet from TCP source 0 attached at node 0, for TCP destination 0 attached at node 4

    • The size of this packet is 592 bytes.

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  • To compute the throughput, do:
    1. Trace the last hop link of the destination.
    2. Look for receive (r) events in the trace file.
    3. Look for the correct source and destination pair
    4. Add up all the packet sizes in the receive events

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• Example Tracing TCP Throughput
  • Recall the network simulated:
    

  • Note that the last link to the destination is (n3, n4)

  • The following addition is made to the Reno script to get trace data to the destination:

      #Make a NS simulator     set ns [new Simulator]  # Define a 'finish' procedure  proc finish {} {     exit 0  }  # Create the nodes:  set n0 [$ns node]  set n1 [$ns node]  set n2 [$ns node]  set n3 [$ns node]  set n4 [$ns node]  set n5 [$ns node]  # Create the links:  $ns duplex-link $n0 $n2   2Mb  10ms DropTail  $ns duplex-link $n1 $n2   2Mb  10ms DropTail  $ns duplex-link $n2 $n3 0.3Mb 200ms DropTail  $ns duplex-link $n3 $n4 0.5Mb  40ms DropTail  $ns duplex-link $n3 $n5 0.5Mb  30ms DropTail  # Add a TCP sending module to node n0  set tcp1 [new Agent/TCP/Reno]  $ns attach-agent $n0 $tcp1  # Add a TCP receiving module to node n4  set sink1 [new Agent/TCPSink]  $ns attach-agent $n4 $sink1  # Direct traffic from "tcp1" to "sink1"  $ns connect $tcp1 $sink1  # Setup a FTP traffic generator on "tcp1"  set ftp1 [new Application/FTP]  $ftp1 attach-agent $tcp1  $ftp1 set type_ FTP               (no necessary)  # Schedule start/stop times  $ns at 0.1   "$ftp1 start"  $ns at 100.0 "$ftp1 stop"  # Set simulation end time  $ns at 125.0 "finish"    (Will invoke "exit 0")     ##################################################  ## Obtain Trace date at destination (n4)  ##################################################  set trace_file [open  "out.tr"  w]  $ns  trace-queue  $n3  $n4  $trace_file  # Run simulation !!!!  $ns run

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  • Example Program: (Demo above code)                         
    • Prog file: click here

    Run progran with NS and you will get a trace file

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• Processing the Trace File
  • Take a look at the output trace file "out.tr":

    + 0.311227 3 4 tcp 40 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0  (@ 0.311227 sec: 40 bytes of TCP data arrives at node 3)   - 0.311227 3 4 tcp 40 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0  (@ 0.311227 sec: 40 bytes of TCP data departed from node 3)r 0.351867 3 4 tcp 40 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0  (@ 0.351867 sec: 40 bytes of TCP data is received by node 4)+ 0.831888 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 1 2  (@ 0.831888 sec: 592 bytes of TCP data arrives at node 3)   - 0.831888 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 1 2  (@ 0.831888 sec: 592 bytes of TCP data departed from node 3)+ 0.847675 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 2 3  (@ 0.847675 sec: 592 bytes of TCP data arrives at node 3)   - 0.847675 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 2 3  (@ 0.847675 sec: 592 bytes of TCP data departed from node 3)r 0.88136 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 1 2  (@ 0.88136 sec: 592 bytes of TCP data is received by node 4)r 0.897147 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 2 3+ 1.361381 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 3 6- 1.361381 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 3 6+ 1.377168 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 4 7- 1.377168 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 4 7+ 1.392955 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 5 8- 1.392955 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 5 8+ 1.408741 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 6 9- 1.408741 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 6 9r 1.410853 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 3 6      

  • Computing the throughput received in each time interval is nothing more than tallying the total number of bytes received in each interval.

  • Example:
    From the above trace file, we can tally the number of bytes received in the first second of interval time by adding the packet sizes that are received in the first second.

    These are the packets that are received by TCP entity "4.0" in the first second:

    r 0.351867 3 4 tcp 40 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0r 0.88136 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 1 2r 0.897147 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 2 3      

    The total number of bytes received in the first second is therefore:

    40 + 592 + 592 = 1224 bytes

    or:

    1224 × 8 = 9792 bits

    So the throughput in the first second is 9792 bits/sec = 0.009792 Mbps

    Repeat the process for the second second, and so on...

    You do NOT want to do that by hand...

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  • You need to write a program to identify the correct source, destination pair and add up all the packet size...

  • Someone has done that !!!

  • Here is a PERL program that can be used to process trace files: click here

    Save it and run as using:

      perl  throughput.pl   trfile  destNode  srcNode.port#  destNode.port#  \  time-granularity   

    Time-granularity let you compute the throughput over time intervals, each interval will have the size given by the time-granularity

  • Example:

    You can use the following command to get average throughput data from the trace file obtained in the NS script above:

       perl  throughput.pl  out.tr  4  0.0  4.0  1  > out   

    We need to use these parameters to extract the throughput data because of:

       r 0.351867 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 0 0   

    • 4 is the node ID
    • 0.0 is the ID of the TCP source
    • 4.0 is the ID of the TCP sink

    • The parameter "out.tr" is the input filename
    • The parameter "1" is interval size (here: interval size is 1 second)

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  • The throughput.pl script will create an output file that is suitable for plotting.

    To plot the progressing of average throughput, use gnuplot:

      gnuplot  >> plot "out" using 1:2 title "TCP throughput" with lines 1    

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  Goodput.....

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• The difference between Throughput and Goodput
  • Consider the following receive events in the trace file that happens between 3 and 4 seconds (you can obtain the trace file when running the example program: click here )

    r 3.01512 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 32 63r 3.030907 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 33 64r 3.046693 3 4 tcp 592 ------- 0 0.0 4.0 34 65r 3.06248 3 4 tcp 592 -------