DTP: Deadline-aware Transport Protocol

More and more applications have deadline requirements for their data delivery such as 360° video, cloud VR gaming and autonomous driving. Those applications usually are band-width hungry. Fortunately, the data of those applications can be split into multiple blocks with different priorities making it possible to reduce the bandwidth consumption by prioritizing some blocks over others. However, the existing transport layer is too primitive to accomplish that. So those applications are forced to build their own customized and complex wheels. In this work, we propose Deadline-aware Transport Protocol (DTP) to provide deliver-before-deadline service. The application expresses the deadline and metadata of the data to DTP. Then DTP tries to meet the requirement by scheduling blocks. Compared to existing protocols, DTP provides meaningful service and reduces the burden of the application developer.