Re: Proposal - Reduce HTTP2 frame length from 16 to 12 bits

[Roberto Peon <[e-mail]>]

I understand what you're saying. We're all agreeing that the max frame size
should be limited. I'm simply suggesting 16k is what I think is the best
small frame size. Patrick is suggesting 4k.
I wouldn't object strenuously to 4k, but my experience and gut both say 16k
is the better choice.

-=R


On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 4:25 PM, William Chan (陈智昌)
<[e-mail]>wrote:

> Just to be clear, I don't feel too strongly here. I do want to address a
> point as I feel my previous point was lost.
>
>
> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:12 PM, Roberto Peon <[e-mail]> wrote:
>
>> responses inline
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 12:16 PM, William Chan (陈智昌) <
>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:50 AM, James M Snell <[e-mail]>wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:41 AM, Roberto Peon <[e-mail]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> > As a reverse proxy, I've seen properties for which 4k writes/reads
>>>> were too
>>>> > small and induced latency increases.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> I haven't played with this part too much yet but this is my general
>>>> suspicion also.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Can you guys clarify this in more detail? Specifically, where the
>>> latency comes from. I have ideas, but I'd rather than an authoritative
>>> explanation.
>>>
>>
>> It always comes down to the cost of the context switches (i.e. syscalls)
>> and the locking that must be done in the lower layers of the IO stack.
>>
>
> Thanks for the clarification, I suspected it was the write()/read() cost,
> which I assume is what you mean by syscall.
>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> > Admittedly, frame size doesn't have to be the same as read/write
>>>> size, but
>>>> > it certainly does encourage that implementation (which is, I think,
>>>> the
>>>> > point of smaller max frame size that you proposed).
>>>>
>>>
>>> You're right that it does encourage that implementation. Just like a
>>> larger length encourages just naively breaking up frames into that max
>>> frame size and thus hurt responsiveness. Which one is likelier to cause
>>> worse overall "performance" (I know this is vague, since people care about
>>> different aspects of perf)? What we want to do is have the most reasonable
>>> default behavior, with the ability for performant implementations to tune
>>> without unreasonable difficulty. I believe we're mostly focusing here on
>>> optimizing the naive implementations, not the highly tuned implementations.
>>>
>>
>> Remember that I'm the one who proposed the smaller max frame size in the
>> first place (now a fair while ago)? :)
>>
>
> I don't believe I've said anything that would imply I forgot that :)
>
>
>> My sweet-spot number was 16k, as I knew that I could saturate a 10G nic
>> with 16k frames/writes and have enough CPU left over to do some actual
>> work. The amount of overhead goes up more than linearly with the decrease
>> in frame size thanks to contention, etc.
>>
>
> I think you miss my point. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think
> you're saying that for your server, 16k was the right choice for write()s.
> write() sizes don't need to be tied to actual frame size, but of course
> that's what a naive implementation would do. And again, I think we should
> pick a max frame size that results in reasonable behavior for naive
> implementations/deployments. And I think the highly performant
> implementations will want to write their code in a way that decouples frame
> size from write() size, and will pick the optimal write() size given the
> tradeoffs.
>
>
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> >
>>>> > I propose we keep the 16 bit frame size and instead allow the (now
>>>> > negotiated setting of) max frame size to default to 12 bits worth,
>>>> with that
>>>> > going upwards out downwards when a settings frame arrives from the
>>>> other
>>>> > side indicating it's max receive size. HK
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> Honestly, I'd prefer to do away with frame size negotiation altogether
>>>> because of the potential for path mtu style issues. Keeping the 16-bit
>>>> size for now with strong encouragement (SHOULD, perhaps?) for keeping
>>>> sizes around 12-bit lengths for the most common cases  seems like the
>>>> right approach.
>>>>
>>>> -- James
>>>>
>>>
>> Unlike TCP/IP, max frame size is a point-to-point thing, as the primitive
>> we mux is streams, not frames. Frames are the way we accomplish the muxing.
>> Why would there be any path MTU like thing?
>>
>> -=R
>>
>>
>>>
>>>> > This would give the best chance that the code would be written in
>>>> such a way
>>>> > as to adapt with the times as they change.
>>>> > -=R
>>>> >
>>>> > On May 28, 2013 10:01 AM, "William Chan (陈智昌)" <[e-mail]
>>>> >
>>>> > wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> Can you clarify what you mean by a documented performance metric for
>>>> >> non-browser use cases? I don't think Patrick said anything browser
>>>> specific.
>>>> >> He provided some serialization latency numbers and noted that they
>>>> are high
>>>> >> enough to impact responsiveness. And then he provided numbers on
>>>> overhead.
>>>> >>
>>>> >> I, for one, find the responsiveness argument compelling for
>>>> browsers. I'm
>>>> >> not completely sure 0.2% is low enough overhead for everyone, but I
>>>> wouldn't
>>>> >> complain about it. And in absence of complaints, I guess I'd support
>>>> moving
>>>> >> forward with only 12 bits for length.
>>>> >>
>>>> >>
>>>> >> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 9:22 AM, James M Snell <[e-mail]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> Currently, my only challenge with this is that, so far, we have not
>>>> >>> seen any documented performance metrics for non-browser based uses.
>>>> >>> .That said, I don't really have the time currently to put together a
>>>> >>> comprehensive set of such metrics so it wouldn't be polite of me to
>>>> >>> insist on them ;-) ... perhaps for now we ought to keep the 16-bit
>>>> >>> size but include a recommendation about not exceeding 12-bits, then
>>>> >>> see what more implementation experience does for us.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 7:20 AM, Patrick McManus <
>>>> [e-mail]>
>>>> >>> wrote:
>>>> >>> > Hi All,
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > I've been looking at a lot of spdy frames lately, and I've
>>>> noticed what
>>>> >>> > I
>>>> >>> > consider a common implementation problem that I think a good
>>>> http/2
>>>> >>> > spec
>>>> >>> > could help with. I'm commonly seeing frames large enough to
>>>> interfere
>>>> >>> > with
>>>> >>> > effective prioritization. I've seen this from at least 3 different
>>>> >>> > servers.
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > The HTTP/2 draft has a max frame size of 16 bits, which is a huge
>>>> >>> > improvement from spdy's 24. I propose we reduce it further to 12.
>>>> (i.e.
>>>> >>> > 4096
>>>> >>> > bytes).
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > The muxxed approach of multiple streams onto one connection done
>>>> in
>>>> >>> > HTTP/2
>>>> >>> > has great advantages, but the one downside of it is that it
>>>> creates
>>>> >>> > head of
>>>> >>> > line blocking problems between those streams dictated by frame
>>>> >>> > granularity.
>>>> >>> > With small frames this is pretty manageable, with extremely large
>>>> ones
>>>> >>> > we've
>>>> >>> > recreated the same head of line problems that HTTP/1 pipelines
>>>> have.
>>>> >>> > The
>>>> >>> > server needs to  be able to respond quickly to higher priority
>>>> events
>>>> >>> > (including cancellations) and once it has written a frame header
>>>> to the
>>>> >>> > wire
>>>> >>> > it is committed to the entire frame for how ever long it takes to
>>>> >>> > serialize
>>>> >>> > it. IMO the shorter that time, the better.
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > Our spec can help implementations do the right thing here by
>>>> limiting
>>>> >>> > the
>>>> >>> > max frame size to 12 bits.
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > It takes 500msec to serialize 64KB at 1Mbit/sec... 125msec at
>>>> >>> > 4Mbit/sec.
>>>> >>> > Those are some pretty notable task-switch times. Dropping the
>>>> frame to
>>>> >>> > 4096
>>>> >>> > cuts them to 32msec and 8 msec.. that's much more responsive, at
>>>> the
>>>> >>> > cost of
>>>> >>> > 120 extra bytes of transfer (< 1msec at 1Mbit/sec).
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > In general - the smaller the better as long as the overhead
>>>> doesn't get
>>>> >>> > to
>>>> >>> > be too large. At 8 in 4096 (~.2%) I think that's acceptable. Its
>>>> >>> > roughly the
>>>> >>> > same overhead as a VLAN tag.
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > Obviously this makes a continuation bit for control frames
>>>> absolutely
>>>> >>> > mandatory, but I think we're already in that spot with 16 bit
>>>> frame
>>>> >>> > lengths.
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> > -Patrick
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>> >
>>>> >>>
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>