Detrended Fluctuation Analysis of the TCP-Red Algorithm

It has been observed that Internet gateways employing Transport Control Protocol (TCP) and the Random Early Detection (RED) control algorithm may exhibit instability and oscillatory behavior. Most control methods proposed in the past have been based on analytical models that rely on statistical measurements of network parameters. In this paper, we apply the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) method to analyze stability of the TCP-RED system. The DFA is used to analyze time-series data and generate power-law scaling exponents, which indicate the long-range correlations of the time series. We quantify the stability of the TCP-RED system by examining the variation of the DFA power-law scaling exponent when the system parameters are varied. We also study the long-range power-law correlations of TCP window periods.