IETF Logo Mail Archive

Re: internet draft on suggested mod to the Nagle algorithm

Joe Touch <touch@ISI.EDU> Wed, 03 February 1999 22:48 UTC

X-Authentication-Warning: assateague-fi.lerc.nasa.gov: listserv set sender to owner-tcp-impl@lerc.nasa.gov using -f
From: Joe Touch <touch@ISI.EDU>
Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 14:48:35 -0800
Message-Id: <199902032248.OAA02339@rum.isi.edu>
To: tcp-impl@lerc.nasa.gov, minshall@siara.com
Subject: Re: internet draft on suggested mod to the Nagle algorithm
X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII
Sender: owner-tcp-impl@lerc.nasa.gov
Precedence: bulk
Status: RO
Content-Length: 1198
Lines: 37

> To: tcp-impl@lerc.nasa.gov
> Subject: internet draft on suggested mod to the Nagle algorithm
> Date: Mon, 01 Feb 1999 18:07:11 -0800
> From: Greg Minshall <minshall@siara.com>
> 
> 	Title		: A Suggested Modification to Nagle's Algorithm
> 	Author(s)	: G. Minshall
> 	Filename	: draft-minshall-nagle-00.txt
> 	Pages		: 4
> 	Date		: 29-Jan-99
> 	
>    The Nagle algorithm is one of the primary mechanisms which protects
>    the internet from poorly designed and/or implemented applications.
>    However, for a certain class of applications (notably,
>    request-response protocols) the Nagle algorithm interacts poorly
>    with delayed acknowledgements to give these applications poorer
>    performance.
> 
>    This draft is NOT suggesting that these applications should disable
>    the Nagle algorithm.

Why not?

Nagle was a solution to char-at-a-time remote logins, and
is discouraged for transactional systems, even ones with
bursts as small as a few characters, e.g., X11.

See:

	John Heidemann. Performance Interactions Between P-HTTP 
	and TCP Implementations. ACM Computer Communication Review, 
	27 2, 65-73, April, 1997.

	http://www.isi.edu/~johnh/PAPERS/Heidemann97a.html


Joe

v2.23.0 | Report a Bug | By Email