Performance evaluation of the stream control transmission protocol

Transporting of signaling messages over IP networks should conform to the Signaling System 7 quality of service requirements. In this paper we investigate the behavior of the stream control transmission protocol (SCTP) which is the basis of the SIGTRAN protocol stack. In order to analyze SIGTRAN reliability and performance we have implemented both a test bed and a simulation tool. We also develop an analytical model of SCTP based on the bulk service queue. Finally, we present formulas and numerical results to estimate signaling message transmission delay over IP networks. © 2006 IEEE.