Why TCP timers don't work well

DOI Web Site 2 Citations
  • L Zhang
    Laboratory for Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA

Description

<jats:p>Repeated observation of TCP retransmission timer problems stimulated investigation into the roles and limitations of timers. Timers are indispensable tools in building up reliable distributed systems. However, as the experience with the TCP retransmission timer has shown, timers have intrinsic limitations in offering optimal performance. Any timeout based action is a guess based on incomplete information, and as such is bound to be non-optimal. We conclude that, if we aim at high performance, we should use external events as a first line of defense against failures, and depend on timers only in cases where external notification has failed.</jats:p>

Journal

Citations (2)*help

See more

Details 詳細情報について

Report a problem

Back to top