[ledbat] list of reasons for needing multiple TCP connections

Joe Touch <touch@ISI.EDU> Thu, 20 November 2008 19:44 UTC

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Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 11:43:42 -0800
From: Joe Touch <touch@ISI.EDU>
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Subject: [ledbat] list of reasons for needing multiple TCP connections
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Responding to the issue of reasons to need multiple connections, here
are a few of mine (extended from those listed at the mic). This is not
intended to be a complete list, but a reasonable place to start. The
general point is that this is NOT always about hogging bandwidth, either
intentionally or not.

Joe

- --------------------------------------
Reasons to use multiple concurrent TCP connections:

- - get around head-of-line blocking
	this was an original reason for web browsers needing them

- - demultiplexing
	related to HOL blocking but not requiring it,
	this uses TCP connections to demultiplex different
	streams, because TCP doesn't provide that labeling itself

	this was a reason for using different connections for FTP
	data and control, e.g.

- - support different stream properties
	i.e., a single app may want different streams with Nagle
	enabled and disabled, or with different socket buffer
	sizes (to limit delay)

- - support "CLOSE means EOF" semantics
	a reason for multiple connections in HTTP 1.0

- - support larger socket buffer sizes
	esp. without autotuning, but even with, more connections
	means more socket buffering is available

- -------

One I forgot to note:

- - different interaction with errors
	a single connection would keep restarting;
	multiple connections increases the possibility that
	one connection doesn't get hit with a short error burst

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