From: Jim Gettys <jg@freedesktop.org>
To: bloat@lists.bufferbloat.net
Subject: Re: [Bloat] Failure to convince
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 11:53:59 -0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4D5569A7.70204@freedesktop.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1297441797.29639.8.camel@amd.pacdat.net>
On 02/11/2011 11:29 AM, richard wrote:
> I had an email exchange yesterday with the top routing person at a local
> ISP yesterday. Unlike my exchanges with non-tech people, this one ended
> with him saying Bufferbloat was not a problem because...
>
> "I for for one never want to see packet loss. I spent several years
> working on a national US IP network, and it was nothing but complaints
> from customers about 1% packet loss between two points. Network
> engineers hate packet loss, because it generates so many complaints.
> And packet loss punishes TCP more than deep buffers.
>
> So I'm sure that you can find a bunch of network engineers who think
> big buffers are bad. But the trend in network equipment in 2010 and
> 2011 has been even deeper buffers. Vendors starting shipping data
> centre switches with over 700MB of buffer space. Large buffers are
> needed to flatten out microbursts. But these are also intelligent
> buffers."
>
> His point about network people hating packet loss points up the problem
> we'll have with educating them and the purchasing public that at least
> some is necessary for TCP to function.
>
> Not having been in charge of a major backbone recently, I have to admit
> that my understanding of today's switching hardware was to be able to
> deal with everything "at wire speed" with cut-through switching, unlike
> the store-and-forward typical switches and routers at the consumer
> level.
One response is that huge buffers actually induce higher packet loss
rates on large transfers, when saturated. A happy TCP has much less
than 1% loss rates.
Also note that it isn't buffering per se' that is the problem here; it's
unmanaged bloated buffers without signalling the hosts o fcongestion.
And yes, it's an education problem, and why I'm hopeful ECN can play a
role in the equation.
- Jim
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-02-11 16:54 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-02-11 16:29 richard
2011-02-11 16:53 ` Jim Gettys [this message]
2011-02-11 19:23 ` Richard Scheffenegger
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