Re: [e2e] opening multiple TCP connections getting popular

>> PPT slides are here: http://www3.ietf.org/proceedings/07mar/slides/
>> tsvarea-3/tsvarea-3.ppt
>>
>
> Thanks, that's very interesting! (and thanks to David Ros too,
> who also pointed me to these slides in a private email)
>
> So ... the reasons they give are bugs, bugs, bugs.
>

not just bugs, but bugs in devices that violate the e2e and layering model because they are components of the network that mess with protocol elements that are supposed to be opaque to the network.

related problems include: that their (dys)functions are not easily observable by the parties affected by them (i.e. they can't easily determine what device is screwing up their applications), and similarly, there's no good way for the parties who are responsible for installing such devices to learn that the devices are screwing with applications.

it is arguable that there need to be some guidelines for implementors of such devices. but IETF has always had a difficult time making recommendations for how to violate their protocols in such a way as to minimize harm. (e.g. "if you must do this evil thing, do it this way rather than this other way").

from an IRTF perspective, maybe it would be useful for someone to collect information about failures caused by devices of this sort, analyze the reasons for these failures, and determine whether there are ways for such devices to do what they intend to do without causing unintended failures. also it would be useful to see whether there are ways for failures caused by such devices to become more visible/accountable to endpoints, or for those failures to become more visible to the maintainers for such devices.

I don't think that this means that work on congestion control etc. is hopeless - I think it means that vendors need to learn how to implement intermediaries that rarely cause failures that aren't intended as a matter of policy, and also how to arrange things that when such failures do occur that the endpoints can recover from them. Received on Fri Aug 31 08:30:01 2007