Improving MPTCP Performance by Enabling Sub-Flow Selection over a SDN Supported Network

The primary objective behind the development of Multipath TCP (MPTCP) is to aggregate throughput by creating multiple sub-flows via different network interfaces. A difference in end-to-end path characteristics for the sub-flows may generate out of order segments, causing head of line (HOL) blocking at the receiver. An intelligent selection of a subset of the available sub-flows can reduce the number of out of order segments; thus sub-flow selection can enhance the performance of MPTCP. In this paper, we first propose a Markov model for the performance of MPTCP in terms of end-to-end sub-flow characteristics. Based on the theoretical model, we present an optimization framework for active sub-flow selection by exploiting the controller functionali-ties over a software defined network (SDN) architecture. Finally, experimental results are obtained to demonstrate performance improvements of MPTCP in terms of aggregated throughput.