[e2e] TCP Loss Differentiation

Injong Rhee rhee at ncsu.edu
Thu Feb 19 19:07:55 PST 2009


Perhaps I might add on this thread. Yes. I agree that it is not so clear 
that we have a model for non-congestion related losses. The motivation for 
this differentiation is, I guess, to disregard non-congestion related losses 
for TCP window control. So the motivation is valid. But maybe we should look 
at the problem from a different perspective. Instead of trying to detect 
non-congestion losses, why not try to detect congestion losses? 
Well..congestion signals are definitely easy to detect because losses are 
typically associated with some patterns of delays. So the scheme would be 
"reduce the congestion window ONLY when it is certain with high probability 
that losses are from congestion". This scheme would be different from 
"reduce whenever any indication of congestion occurs". Well my view could be 
too dangerous. But given that there are protocols out there, e.g., DCCP, 
that react to congestion much more slowly than TCP, this type of protocols 
may not be so bad...


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Baker" <fred at cisco.com>
To: "David P. Reed" <dpreed at reed.com>
Cc: "end2end-interest list" <end2end-interest at postel.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2009 5:07 PM
Subject: Re: [e2e] TCP Loss Differentiation


> Copying the specific communicants in this thread as my postings to 
> end2end-interest require moderator approval (I guess I'm not an 
> acceptable person for some reason, and the moderator has told me that  he 
> will not tell me what rule prevents me from posting without  moderation).
>
> I think you're communicating just fine. I understood, and agreed with, 
> your comment.
>
> I actually think that a more important model is not loss processes,  which 
> as you describe are both congestion-related and related to other 
> underlying issues, but a combination of several underlying and 
> fundamentally different kinds of processes. One is perhaps "delay 
> processes" (of which loss is the extreme case and L2 retransmission is  a 
> partially-understood and poorly modeled contributor to). Another  might be 
> interference processes (such as radio interference in  802.11/802.16 
> networks) that cause end to end packet loss for other  reasons. In mobile 
> networks, it might be worthwhile to distinguish the  processes of network 
> change - from the perspective of an endpoint that  is in motion, its 
> route, and therefore its next hop, is constantly  changing and might at 
> times not exist.
>
> Looking at it from a TCP/SCTP perspective, we can only really discuss  it 
> as how we can best manage to use a certain share of the capacity  the 
> network provides, how much use is counterproductive, when to  retransmit, 
> and all that. But understanding the underlying issues will  contribute 
> heavily to that model.
>
> On Feb 11, 2009, at 7:20 AM, David P. Reed wrote:
>
>> I don't understand how what I wrote could be interpreted as "a 
>> congestion-based loss process cannot be modeled or predicted".
>>
>> I was speaking about *non-congestion-based* "connectivity loss  related 
>> loss process", and I *said* that it is not a single- parameter, 
>> memoryless loss process.
>>
>> I said nothing whatsoever about congestion-based loss processes,  having 
>> differentiated carefully the two types of loss (which  differentiation 
>> was what Detlef started this thread with).
>>
>> Clearly I am not communicating, despite using English and common  terms 
>> from systems modeling mathematics.
>>
>> Xai Xi wrote:
>>> are you saying that a congestion-based loss process cannot be  modeled 
>>> or predicted? a tool, badabing, from sigcomm'05, claims to  be highly 
>>> accurate in measuring end-to-end loss processes.
>>>
>>> David wrote:
>>>
>>>> A "loss process" would be a mathematically more sound term,  because it
>>> does not confuse> the listener into thinking that there is a 
>>> simplistic, memoryless, one-parameter model that> can be  "discovered" 
>>> by TCP's control algorithms.
>>>
>>>> That said, I was encouraging a dichotomy where the world is far more
>>> complicated:
>>>> congestion drops vs. connectivity drops.  One *might* be
>>> able to make much practical
>>>> headway by building a model and a theory of
>>> "connectivity drops".
>>>
>>>
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>
>
> 



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