Basic Operation

The basic operation of CP is as follows.

• As packets originate from source endpoints.
  The CP header is included in the application packet indicating the source of the packet and the cluster application it is associated with.

• As packets arrive at the local AP.
  CP will process the identification information arriving in the CP header, and note the packet's size and arrival time. Part of the CP header will then be overwritten, allowing the AP to communicate congestion probe information to the remote AP.

• As packets arrive at the remote AP.
  The CP header is processed and used to detect network conditions. Again, part of the CP header is overwritten to communicate network condition information, along with information on cluster application size and bandwidth usage, to the remote remote endpoint.

• As packets arrive at the destination endpoint.
  CP processes network condition information from the CP header and passes it on to the transport-level protocol and the application.