Re: [AVTCORE] [tsvwg] [rtcweb] WG Last Call on changes: draft-ietf-avtcore-rtp-circuit-breakers-16

[Michael Welzl <[e-mail]>]

> On 20. jun. 2016, at 15.16, Black, David <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>>> But I’m less concerned than David about eventually ignoring it for circuit
>> breaker.
>>> 
>> Agree. Loss is the measurement that a CB MUST respond to.
> 
> Mumble.   I would be ok with a clear discouragement for use of ECN-CE marks, accompanied by the sort of design rationale here, or even better, a clear statement that lost packets for the purpose of the RTP circuit breaker have to be actually lost without getting into whether or not ECN-CE marks are involved -i.e., the RTP circuit breaker is specified against actual drops as a network protection backstop.
> 
> A related concern is that ECN marks may overstate equivalent loss behavior - a simplistic queue management discipline that marks every packet when the queue is over a threshold (NB: this class of marking behavior is NOT RECOMMENDED - a real AQM SHOULD be used) could yield a run of ECN-CE marks that would not cause a corresponding with a run of packet drops.   This is among the reasons that TCP reacts to ECN-CE marks only once per RTT, and might be a reason to treat multiple ECN-CE marks in an RTT interval as not representing drops of all packets for the RTP circuit breaker's TCP-equivalent throughput calculation.

I’m not sure we need such complicated logic to find a case where ECN marks are different from packet drops:

Basically, they simply aren’t - even “real” AQMs marking isn’t exactly the same as a packet drop: the marks themselves inform you that an AQM did its job, and with modern AQMs like CoDel / PIE etc., you’re probably getting this from a shallow queue. Chances are that this is less than a BDP worth of queuing, which is our justification for recommending a different back-off behavior in draft-khademi-tsvwg-ecn-response-00 and draft-khademi-tcpm-alternativebackoff-ecn-00

So the point is not that AQMs would treat ECN marking and dropping differently - it’s that ECN indicates an AQM, and hence probably a shallow queue. With a drop, you just don’t know.

Back to the CB, I think an AQM marking at a shallow queue (like e.g. CoDel) is indeed quite different from a “broken connection”.

Cheers,
Michael


> 
> Thanks, --David
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Gorry (erg) [mailto:[e-mail]]
>> Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2016 2:23 AM
>> To: Mirja Kühlewind
>> Cc: Black, David; Magnus Westerlund; Colin Perkins; [e-mail]; IETF
>> AVTCore WG; tsvwg
>> Subject: Re: [tsvwg] [rtcweb] [AVTCORE] WG Last Call on changes: draft-ietf-
>> avtcore-rtp-circuit-breakers-16
>> 
>> I think we SHOULD NOT recommend to use ECN marks as inputs to a CB. See
>> below:
>> 
>>> On 17 Jun 2016, at 16:02, Mirja Kühlewind <[e-mail]>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> +1 to not use normative language here.
>>> 
>>> However, please note that having a high level of ECN-CE marks (without any
>> losses) means that all packets were received correctly. This situation can even
>> occurs without high delays (depending on the AQM used), which would just
>> mean the services works perfectly. Therefore for me CE marks are a perfect input
>> signal for a congestion control loop (where the AQM tell the sender to take action
>> - whatever that means).
>> 
>> We may in future figure out ways to do this to detect significant failure using a
>> rate adaptive transport and ECN e.g.  Observing 100% CE marks or something, for
>> an RTP flow that is trying to send well below its peak rate decided by CC -- but I
>> think this is speculating at an algorithm and adding details here is not a good idea.
>> Especially as AQM continues to evolve.
>> 
>>> But I’m less concerned than David about eventually ignoring it for circuit
>> breaker.
>>> 
>> Agree. Loss is the measurement that a CB MUST respond to.
>> 
>>> In addition one point on something Magnus wrote earlier:
>>> "If the implementation only have circuit breaker, i.e. no full fledged congestion
>> controller and uses ECN, they can in worst case drive the buffer into the overload
>> regime where it starts dropping packets. „
>>> 
>>> I’m not sure about this case. ECN is an input signal for congestion control. If you
>> don’t use congestion control but only a circuit breaker, you should probably not
>> enable ECN. At least it not clear to me why you would enable it, and it's definitely
>> not conform to the ECN spec. Probably we should say something about this in the
>> draft...?
>>> 
>> Agree, enabling ECN without a responsive CC is going to lead to trouble.
>> 
>>> Mirja
>>> 
>> Gorry
>> 
>>>> Am 17.06.2016 um 16:03 schrieb Black, David <[e-mail]>:
>>>> 
>>>> Colin,
>>>> 
>>>>>>> ...  I view the current text as providing implementers with too much
>>>>>>> latitude to ignore ECN-CE marks (e.g., because an implementer doesn't
>>>>>>> want to think about this problem space in the first place).
>>>>> 
>>>>> I agree, but the argument is that doing so is less harmful than deploying a
>> circuit
>>>>> breaker that triggers too often when ECN is used.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m not sure I believe this argument, though, since it seems that any new
>> AQM
>>>>> that applies ECN marks much more often than at present will have to
>> consider
>>>>> backwards compatibility, to work with deployed TCP (e.g., draft-briscoe-
>> tsvwg-
>>>>> aqm-tcpm-rmcat-l4s-problem uses ECT(1) as a signal to use the new marking,
>>>>> while existing implementations set ECT(0)). These compatibility mechanisms
>>>>> would seem to prevent the issues with the circuit breaker too.
>>>> 
>>>> That roughly matches my line of thinking, and I'll observe that the original
>> DCTCP
>>>> protocol design that used more aggressive ECN-CE marking was only safe for
>>>> Controlled Environment deployments.   See the TSVWG rfc5405bis draft for
>> the
>>>> definition of Controlled Environment, and ignore the fact that the rfc5405bis
>>>> draft is a UDP draft - this definition is more broadly applicable.
>>>> 
>>>> Going back over Section 7 in this avtcore draft, my views are:
>>>> 
>>>> [A] None of these drafts justify a "MAY ignore" response to ECN-CE marks:
>>>>   - draft-khademi-tcpm-alternativebackoff-ecn
>>>>   - draft-ietf-rmcat-nada
>>>>   - draft-ietf-rmcat-scream-cc
>>>> 
>>>> [B] In line with Colin's comment on the L4S draft, I think it's incumbent on
>>>> the authors of draft-briscoe-aqm-dualq-coupled to figure out how that will
>>>> coexist (or avoid) deployed TCP, and this avtcore draft ought not to be
>>>> trying to prejudge what will be done there.
>>>> 
>>>> So, I don't think the current text in Section 7 has justified the unfettered
>>>> "implementations MAY ignore ECN-CE marks" text, as ignoring those marks
>>>> is not consistent with any of the four cited drafts.
>>>> 
>>>> In more detail, I think making changes to normative requirements here based
>>>> on [B] is premature, and I would hope that the rmcat WG could be
>> encouraged
>>>> to consider the RTP circuit breaker in its congestion control drafts, as those CC
>>>> mechanisms are related to the circuit breaker mechanism, hence likely
>>>> to be in related areas of an RTP implementation.
>>>> 
>>>> That leaves draft-khademi-tcpm-alternativebackoff-ecn, which TSVWG
>>>> will be looking at in Berlin.  If a normative statement about ECN-CE reaction
>>>> is going to rest on that draft, then the reference to that draft should be
>>>> normative.  Something about doing that strikes me as premature ...
>>>> 
>>>> I realize that we're trying to predict and accommodate the future, which
>>>> is an imprecise undertaking at best.   As an alternative to the current text,
>>>> would it be reasonable to say (without any RFC 2119 keywords) that the
>>>> best current guidance is still to treat ECN-CE marks as indicating drops,
>>>> with a warning that there is a good possibility of this changing in the
>>>> near future due to all of the work in progress cited in Section 7?
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks, --David
>>>> 
>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>> From: Colin Perkins [mailto:[e-mail]]
>>>>> Sent: Friday, June 17, 2016 6:14 AM
>>>>> To: John Leslie; Black, David
>>>>> Cc: [e-mail]; IETF AVTCore WG; tsvwg
>>>>> Subject: Re: [rtcweb] [AVTCORE] [tsvwg] WG Last Call on changes: draft-ietf-
>>>>> avtcore-rtp-circuit-breakers-16
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>>> On 16 Jun 2016, at 23:25, John Leslie <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Black, David <[e-mail]> wrote:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> ...  I view the current text as providing implementers with too much
>>>>>>> latitude to ignore ECN-CE marks (e.g., because an implementer doesn't
>>>>>>> want to think about this problem space in the first place).
>>>>> 
>>>>> I agree, but the argument is that doing so is less harmful than deploying a
>> circuit
>>>>> breaker that triggers too often when ECN is used.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m not sure I believe this argument, though, since it seems that any new
>> AQM
>>>>> that applies ECN marks much more often than at present will have to
>> consider
>>>>> backwards compatibility, to work with deployed TCP (e.g., draft-briscoe-
>> tsvwg-
>>>>> aqm-tcpm-rmcat-l4s-problem uses ECT(1) as a signal to use the new marking,
>>>>> while existing implementations set ECT(0)). These compatibility mechanisms
>>>>> would seem to prevent the issues with the circuit breaker too.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> Understand, we have at least two proposals to make ECN-CE more
>> frequent
>>>>>> than packet drop would be for non-ECN packets: possibly substantially
>>>>>> more frequent. Unless both are killed off, ECN-CE will show up frequently
>>>>>> enough that closing the flow on ECN-CE would kill too many connections.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If you want circuit-breaking on such connections, there are two ways:
>>>>>> 1. convince the forwarding nodes to drop packets if their queue exceeds
>>>>>> design capacity; or
>>>>>> 2. require the sender to send enough not-ECN-capable packets so that our
>>>>>> receiver will see enough packet-drops when a circuit-breaker should
>>>>>> activate.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (I prefer the first option; but I wouldn't object to the second.)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> There really isn't any way for our circuit-breaker to know _how_much_
>>>>>> more frequent the ECN-CE marks may be. :^(
>>>>> 
>>>>> This is a problem, both for the circuit breaker, and for the algorithms being
>>>>> defined in RMCAT. We do need some understanding what the expected
>> marking
>>>>> rates are likely to be, so congestion control and circuit breakers can be
>> defined.
>>>>> 
>>>>>> We _will_ be sorry if we
>>>>>> allot the same frequency of CE packets as packet-drops to trigger the
>>>>>> circuit-breaker.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Could someone propose initial text to qualifies the current "MAY ignore"
>>>>>>> statement?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Essentially, for the second option, you might propose text to the
>>>>>> effect of:
>>>>>> ]
>>>>>> ] If too many ECN-CE packets are received, the sender SHOULD send some
>>>>>> ] not-ECN-capable packets to determine whether enough packets along the
>>>>>> ] path are being dropped to justify activating our circuit-breaker.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I’m not enthusiastic about adding that; but it would resolve the issue.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m not convinced this would work. The circuit breaker is looking at long term
>>>>> trends, and in order to have enough not-ECT packets to determine if it
>> should
>>>>> trigger, you’d essentially have to run without ECN for some seconds.
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> Colin Perkins
>>>>> https://csperkins.org/
>>>> 
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>