Design and Deployment of a Reliable File Transfer Protocol over Asymmetric Satellite Networks

1. Design and Deployment of a Reliable File Transfer Protocol over Asymmetric Satellite Networks Anupam Goyal Roll no. 01329001 Guided By Dr. Sridhar Iyer

2. Outline of the Talk • Why Satellite networks for reliable transfer ? • Reliable Multicast Transfer Strategies • DEP Satellite Network • The Problem and the proposed solution • RTAN • Deployment Problems • Field Experiments and results • Conclusions and Future Work

3. Satellite Networks • Widely used for audio-video transmissions • Major disadvantages – • large delay • higher bit error rates • limited bandwidth

4. Satellite Networks for Reliable Transfer • Interesting for reliable data transfer to clients dispersed over a large area due to • Inherent multicast nature • Long reach

5. Reliable Multicast Protocols • Types – based on error recovery responsibility • Sender-Initiated • Sender keeps track of all the clients • Sender Asks for ACKs periodically • Receiver-Initiated • Receiver detects packet loss through timers • Receiver sends NACKs to server • Tree Based • ACK Tree of receivers • Group leaders perform error recovery • Ring Based • Token site performs error recovery • Token passing • Various implementations : MFTP, RMTP, SRM, LBRM, MDP etc.

6. DEP Satellite Network • Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) Network • Topology • 512 kbps Demand Assigned Multiple Access channel • 16 kbps Time Division Multiple Access channel

7. Satellite Viasat HUB Satellitedish Comnet Noida Remote Site Remote Site 512 Kbps Simplex Carrier 16Kbps TDMA Control Central Site - IIT Powai Control Channel to Comnet Hub The DEP Network Setup

8. INSAT 3B INSAT 3B INSAT 3B 16 kbps Control Channel 16 kbps Control Channel 512 kbps Video/Audio Data Stream 3.8 Mtr. Ku 3.8 Mtr. Ku - - Band Band Polling Channels. Polling Channels. Antenna Antenna ODU ODU SKYLINX IDU SKYLINX IDU DAMA IDU DAMA IDU DAMA IDU DAMA IDU DAMA IDU DAMA IDU HSCU HSCU HSCU HSCU HSCU HSCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU DCU VACANT SLOT VACANT SLOT VACANT SLOT VACANT SLOT VACANT SLOT VACANT SLOT ROUTER ROUTER Data Data H.323 H.323 Broadcast Broadcast Ethernet LAN Ethernet LAN Camera, Mic, Camera, Mic, Speaker Speaker Recorded Recorded Studio Type Studio Type lecture lecture VC System VC System

9. The Requirement • To send any file reliably over the satellite network to all or a particular receiving station. • Large files of the order of 1 GB : videotaped lecture • Small files of the order of KBs : tutorials etc.

10. The Problem • The need to have TCP like reliability. • The need to send files of the order of 1 GB. • The 16 kbps full duplex reliable channel is too small for sending large files in reasonable time. • The 512 kbps DAMA channel is a multicast channel and hence offers no guarantee of reliable data delivery.

11. The Solution • Use the 512 kbps half duplex channel for data transfer. • Use the 16 kbps full duplex channel for control information exchange with the receivers. • Design an application level UDP based reliable file transfer protocol.

12. Logical TDMA point to point channel

13. Designed Protocol • Reliable Transfer over Asymmetric Networks (RTAN) • Basic Idea of RTAN – • The overall transfer consists of many Transfer Cycles • Each Transfer cycle consists of oneData Cycle and many Recovery Cycles • A fixed number of packets are sent per Data Cycle to all the clients. • All the packets dropped by at least one client are remulticast in Recovery Cycles until all the clients have received all the packets sent in the Data Cycle.

14. The Protocol Sequence Graph

16. The Server State Transition Graph

18. The Client State Transition Graph

20. RTAN - The Basic Protocol: Server Server side processing • Start ConnectionAcceptorThread. Wait for Client connections. Add connecting clients to a global Connection List. • Wait for file transfer request. • Start KeepAlive thread. • Start Transfer. • Transmission setup cycle: • Mark all the clients in the connection list as in session. • Send file Transfer_Start message to all the clients on control channel. Information like file name, file size etc. • Wait for ACKs.

21. RTAN - The Basic Protocol: Server • Start Transfer Cycle. • Data Cycle • Create transfer buffer and index. • ReadNdata packets of size M bytes from the file. • Buffer them in the memory. • Creates a N bit send index, one bit for each packet. • M,N pre-decided. • Send Data_Start message – start packet index, end packet index • Wait for Acks from all clients. • Multicast N data packetson the DAMA channel.

22. RTAN - The Basic Protocol: Server • Recovery Cycle: • Reuest N bit index from the RS’s on the control channel from all clients. • Send Send_Index message to all clients. • Wait for ACKs. • Perform boolean AND with the server send index. • Create recovery list from send buffer. • Remulticast the packets dropped by the clients. • Again request index from all clients. • If recovery list empty then transfer cycle ends • Send Recovery_End message to all clients. • Wait for ACKs. • If no more data to send then Transfer ends. • Send Transfer_End message to all clients. • Wait for ACKs.

23. RTAN - The Basic Protocol: Client Client Side Processing • Start the ControlProcessorThread and the DataProcessorThread. • Wait for Server messages. • If Transfer_Start message, create a session object. • If Data_Start message, create a buffer and N bit index. • If Send_Index message, send index to the server. • If Recovery_End message, flush buffer to disk. • If Transfer_End message, delete session object.

24. RTAN - The Basic Protocol • Contents of data packet: • RTAN header • Actual data bytes • RTAN header is of 17 bytes: • SessionID (4 bytes) • FileID (4 bytes) • Sequence Number (4 bytes) • FileSize (4 bytes) • Flags (1 byte)

25. RTAN - The Basic Protocol • Disadvantages: • The protocol is only as fast as the maximum faulting RS. • Limited by the number of RS’s that can be accommodated on the control channel.

26. Deployment of RTAN on DEP Satellite Network • Server at IIT Bombay • Client at NCST, Juhu, Mumbai.

27. Deployment Problems • The Router Configuration problem • Multicast group, multicast port added to router • The Time To Live problem • TTL value set to greater than 3 • The Router Table Update problem • 2-3 seconds of multicast route setup time • The Link Data rate Synchronization problem • The server throttled according to the link data rate • The Link Up-Down problem • Dummy KeepAlive packet were introduced

28. Field Experiments • Achievable data rates • Granularity of 10 ms • 24, 30, 37.5, 49.5 and 75 Kilobytes per second • Error rate of DEP Satellite Network • Very low – 0.5% in good channel conditions • 2%-3% in early morning hours • Data Packet Size • DEP Satellite Network MTU – 1500 bytes • Max Application data – 1440 bytes • 17 byte RTAN header

29. Experiment 1: Transfer Time vs File Size

30. Experiment 2: Transfer Time vs Packets Per Transfer

31. Experiment 3: Transfer Time vs Data Rate

32. Experiment 2: Transfer Time vs Packets Per Transfer for different Data Rates

33. Conclusions Drawn from Field Experiments • Effect of time spent on exchanging control information on overall transfer time is greater for small files. • Data rate is the main contributing factor to the overall transfer time as against packets per transfer. • Data rates closest to link capacity result in maximum throughput.

34. Conclusions • A protocol for reliable transfer over asymmetric networks (RTAN) has been proposed. • Implementation of RTAN for writing a file transfer utility for DEP satellite network. • RTAN Basic implementation works quite well for the DEP Satellite Network owing to very low error rates.

35. Future Work • To extract a reliable transport layer protocol for asymmetric networks • To optimize the basic protocol implementation: • Version 1.1 Multiple Multicast Per cycle • Version 1.2 Ignore Unruly Client • Version 1.3 Regional Division of Clients • To adapt the protocol to changing DEP network topology

36. Thank You