On the Use of Petri Nets for the Computation of Completion Time Distributon for Short TCP Transfers

In this paper we describe how the completion time distribution for short TCP connections can be computed using Deterministic Stochastic Petri Net (DSPN) models of TCP protocol. A DSPN model of TCP is a representation of the finite state machine description of the TCP transmitter behavior, and provides an accurate description of the TCP dynamics. The DSPN requires as input only the packet loss probability, and the average round trip time for the TCP connections being considered. The proposed model has been validated by comparing it against simulation results in various network scenarios, thus proving that the model is accurate. Numerical results are presented to prove the flexibility and the potentialities of the proposed methodology.