Application of Control Theory to Modeling and Analysis of Computer Systems
Molly H. Shor, Kang Li, Jonathan Walpole, David C. Steere, Calton Pu · PDXScholar (Portland State University) · 2000
Abstract – Experimentally, we show that Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)’s congestion control algorithm results in dynamic behavior similar to a stable limit cycle (attractor) when data from TCP flow into a fixed-size buffer and data is removed from the buffer at a fixed service rate. This setup represents how TCP buffers packets for transmission onto the network, with the network represented by a fixed-size buffer with a fixed service rate. The closed trajectory may vary slightly from period to period due to the discrete nature of computer systems. The size of the closed trajectory is a function of the network’s buffer size and the network’s service rate of packets in the buffer.