Evaluation of AASHTO SiteManager Performance on High-Latency Satellite Communication Links

Most transportation agencies and departments have deployed transmission control protocol–Internet protocol (TCP-IP) applications in their offices and are beginning to deploy TCP-IP applications in remote or satellite field offices. Deployment of TCP-IP applications where broadband access is not available can be quite challenging. Satellite-based communication offers an opportunity to provide high-bandwidth connections quickly. However, satellite communications incur significant travel time delay that may result in poor performance of applications designed for a low-latency environment. This paper presents an evaluation of the AASHTO SiteManager software suite with two different satellite broadband providers. SiteManager clients performed poorly in the high-latency environment, in some cases up to 50 times slower than with SiteManager running on a low-latency terrestrial network with equivalent bandwidth. In general, the performance of SiteManager was relatively insensitive to the bandwidth provided by the satellite provider. In most tasks, SiteManager performed better over a 50-kbps dial-up connection than over a 384-kbps satellite connection. In an alternative architecture in which SiteManager was operated remotely via a terminal emulation service over a satellite connection, the performance was observed to be robust. This architecture requires considerably more equipment, software, and technical support. Furthermore, the delay in seeing some keystrokes and cursor movements appear can be somewhat awkward for the user. However, given the extensive bursts of short messages between SiteManager clients and the server, the high-latency constraints of a satellite network make a terminal emulation procedure the only viable method of deploying SiteManager via a commercial satellite IP service.

• Record URL:
  https://doi.org/10.3141/1935-03
• 
• Summary URL:
  http://scholar.google.com/scholar_lookup?title=Evaluation+of+AASHTO+SiteManager+Performance+on+High-Latency+Satellite+Communication+Links&author=T.+Chen&author=J.+Krogmeier&author=D.+Bullock&publication_year=2005
• Availability:
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• Authors:
  • Chen, Tien-Chien
  • Krogmeier, James V
  • Bullock, Darcy M
• Publication Date: 2005

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Print
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: pp 17-27
• Monograph Title: Information Systems and Technology
• Serial:
  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board
  • Issue Number: 1935
  • Publisher: Transportation Research Board
  • ISSN: 0361-1981

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Bandwidth; Computer architecture; Computer network protocols; Performance; Satellite communication
• Identifier Terms: AASHTO SiteManager (Computer program)
• Subject Areas: Highways; Planning and Forecasting; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01023239
• Record Type: Publication
• ISBN: 0309094097
• Files: TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Apr 24 2006 1:01PM