Re: [tsvwg] Cross-area alignment on "L4S and RACK"

[Bob Briscoe <[e-mail]>]

Michael,

Please address the scaling rationale in the appendix for why it does 
matter how a sender realizes this internally.

The list of access links types I mentioned are rarely connected directly 
to routers.



Bob

On 09/11/2018 17:44, Scharf, Michael wrote:
>
> I’ll not comment on link technology implementation, scheduler and 
> queue design assumptions in Appendix A.1.7 of 
> draft-ietf-tsvwg-ecn-l4s-id-05. People e.g. in RTG area may be more 
> familiar with the implications of internal designs e.g. inside a 
> router. IMHO the best way to get routing experts into the loop before 
> further discussing what is currently listed in Appendix A.1.7.
>
> Thus, I limit my response to the actual wording in the main part of 
> draft-ietf-tsvwg-ecn-l4s-id-05:
>
>     o  A scalable congestion control MUST detect loss by counting in
>
>       units of time, which is scalable, and MUST NOT count in units of
>
>       packets (as in the 3 DupACK rule of traditional TCP), which is not
>
>       scalable (see Appendix A.1.7 
> <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tsvwg-ecn-l4s-id-05#appendix-A.1.7>for 
> rationale).
>
> As individual contributor, I disagree with this requirement. I would 
> probably be OK with a wording that a TCP sender must be able to 
> tolerate reordering beyond 3 Duplicate ACKs. I believe it does not 
> matter how a sender realizes this internally.
>
> And if that requirement is not just removed, I believe the wording 
> “traditional TCP” has to be replaced by “standard TCP”.
>
> BTW, also, in the rest of the document there has to be a clear 
> distinction between experiments and standards. History tells us that 
> some experiments can evolve into standards track specifications, while 
> other experiments may fail. And there is no way of knowing that in 
> advance.
>
> Michael
>
> *From:*Bob Briscoe [mailto:[e-mail]]
> *Sent:* Friday, November 9, 2018 11:08 AM
> *To:* Scharf, Michael; [e-mail]
> *Cc:* [e-mail]
> *Subject:* Re: [tsvwg] Cross-area alignment on "L4S and RACK"
>
> Michael,
>
> On 09/11/2018 06:21, Scharf, Michael wrote:
>
>     I don’t see the fundamental difference between a link technology
>     that guarantees in-order delivery within a flow (say by flow
>     hashing, see ECMP) vs. some link scheme that guarantees in-order
>     delivery, say, only for some fraction of the traffic characterized
>     by some other means (say, other header bits).
>
> [The "other means" and "other bits" wording is pretty ambiguous here. 
> I reckon I can guess what you mean but then I don't know why you're 
> saying this, 'cos I don't think I've disagreed with you on this. So 
> perhaps you could be more specific and we might be able to see why 
> you've brought this up.]
>
> Also I wasn't really talking about all "link technology that 
> guarantees in-order delivery within a flow". {Note 1} I was talking 
> about link technology where all flows are blocked while waiting to get 
> the aggregate back in order that it was in when it arrived. I 
> specifically said:
>
> Note that there can be multiple flows over one link. So 'in-order 
> delivery' for a link does not mean in order of TCP sequence number. It 
> means 'delivered in the order that packets arrived at the link' (the 
> link ingress adds its own sequence numbers, and the link egress 
> buffers them until it can send out in the same order, or until a 
> time-out or max no. of link retransmissions).
>
> For example:
>
>   * A packet resequencing buffer after allowing for link-layer
>     retransmissions is common for radio link technologies such as LTE
>     (PDCP layer) and 802.11 WiFi.
>   * A packet resequencing buffer after merging multiple bonded link
>     channels is common for other access link technologies such as
>     downstream DOCSIS bonded channels.
>
>
>
> Clearly, reordering is a problem that needs to be discussed in the 
> IETF as a whole. And we could discuss whether a revision of RFC 3366 
> is needed.
>
> No. There is no proposal to alter general guidance for all links like 
> RFC 3366. No-one is saying this.
>
> There is not even a proposal to require or even recommend that 
> L4S-specific links do anything.
>
> The specific proposal is to require L4S /sources/ to use a RACK-like 
> scheme, as a condition for setting the ECT(1) codepoint. See the last 
> bullet in S.4.3 of draft-ietf-tsvwg-ecn-l4s-id-05 
> <https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-tsvwg-ecn-l4s-id-05#section-4.3>.
>
> This says nothing about what L4S links MUST, SHOULD or MAY do. It just 
> gives an L4S link an opportunity not to have to do resequencing.
>
>
> But I am not convinced that this topic has to be tied into an 
> experiment such as L4S.
>
> It is an opportunity that currently only applies to L4S.
>
> L4S is merely an example of a case where we can mandate that there 
> will be no non-RACK traffic in a link, which creates an opportunity 
> for those who are implementing the L4S DualQ Coupled AQM to ignore the 
> RFC3366 resequencing advice for the L4S queue (but we are not changing 
> the advice, because L4S is only an experiment). The prize is to remove 
> the head-of-line blocking problem for their users.
>
> This is not L4S-specific, altho there are no other examples at the 
> moment where this opportunity is possible (so in that sense it is 
> /currently/ L4S-specific).
>
>
> The message has to be handled really carefully, because the 
> opportunities for misunderstanding are enormous (as evidenced by this 
> thread, and we haven't even started talking to non-transport people yet).
>
> So Gorry and David B want me to draft a short I-D that they will 
> word-smith and author as tsvwg chairs to make the situation clear.
>
> I have said I don't want this discussion to be officially raised 
> outside the transport area until we are sure that a variant of RACK is 
> even feasible without any packet counting at all (i.e. without the 
> initial 3-DupACK rule in current RACK). So I'll prioritize working 
> that out for the next week or so, rather than drafting anything.
>
>
>
> Bob
>
> {Note 1}: I hadn't considered that this would affect technologies like 
> ECMP that maintain order without a resequencing buffer and without 
> introducing HoL blocking. But actually, the consequence there would be 
> that L4S traffic could be sprayed by ECMP without per-flow hashing.
>
>
> Michael
>
> *From:*Bob Briscoe [mailto:[e-mail]]
> *Sent:* Friday, November 9, 2018 6:42 AM
> *To:* Scharf, Michael; [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
> *Cc:* [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
> *Subject:* Re: [tsvwg] Cross-area alignment on "L4S and RACK"
>
> Michael,
>
> That is the point I thought you were making, and my point /is/ about that.
>
> If an application needs all the packets (i.e. a reliable protocol), 
> it's not useful to reduce the latency of some packets but not all. 
> That's where the in-order requirement comes from.
>
> However, if a stream-based transport is used (i.e. TCP) the 
> /application/ still gets in-order delivery from TCP. It just doesn't 
> have to require links to provide in order delivery as well.
>
> Note that there can be multiple flows over one link. So 'in-order 
> delivery' for a link does not mean in order of TCP sequence number. It 
> means 'delivered in the order that packets arrived at the link' (the 
> link ingress adds its own sequence numbers, and the link egress 
> buffers them until it can send out in the same order, or until a 
> time-out or max no. of link retransmissions).
>
> So, if the link loses a packet from flow A (the link isn't aware of 
> microflows, I'm just saying the packet happens to be from flow A), 
> link-layer in-order delivery will hold back all packets sent after 
> that packet (from all flows, not just flow A) until the link repairs 
> the gap or gives up.
>
> So hop-by-hop in-order delivery gives every flow the same delay as the 
> worst delayed flow.
>
> Of course, someone building a network for DETNET would avoid link 
> technologies like WiFi or LTE that frequently lose and retransmit 
> packets. But wherever there is variable delay in a link, guaranteed 
> in-order delivery per-hop means every flow is guaranteed to always get 
> the worst delay from every link, which would have been experienced by 
> only one flow without per-hop in-order delivery.
>
> And many of the applications of DETNET involve dumb industrial 
> machinery that just expects everything to arrive in order and to a 
> clocked schedule. But it's always as effective to deploy a 
> resequencing buffer as the penultimate hop, screwed onto the receiving 
> machine if necessary, rather than require per-hop resequencing in the 
> network.
>
> ________________
> So, why do Internet links often ensure in-order delivery even though 
> TCP puts everything in order for the application?
>
> Short answer: the 3 DupACK rule (which is to do with loss-recovery, a 
> different issue from the discussion above).
>
> Long answer: As flow rates have scaled up, the typical time between 3 
> packet arrivals has become so small that TCP's 3-DupACK rule makes 
> links have to provide delivery with only a very small re-ordering 
> degree - so small that it's easier for a link to just deliver 
> everything in the order it received it; not because TCP doesn't put 
> packets back in order, but just so as not to trigger TCP into 
> generating spurious retransmissions.
>
>
>
> Bob
>
> On 08/11/2018 16:35, Scharf, Michael wrote:
>
>     Inline [ms]
>
>     *From:*Bob Briscoe [mailto:[e-mail]]
>     *Sent:* Thursday, November 8, 2018 12:56 PM
>     *To:* Scharf, Michael; [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
>     *Cc:* [e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>
>     *Subject:* Re: [tsvwg] Cross-area alignment on "L4S and RACK"
>
>     Michael,
>
>     This is merely a symptom of a difference in opinion on where the
>     resequencing function should be located.
>
>       * L4S takes the end-to-end approach saying that it is sufficient
>         to do resequencing in one place (the receiving host) if it is
>         needed. Then any resequencing delay only affects that flow.
>       * The DETNET approach is saying the resequencing must be done
>         hop-by-hop. This means there appears to be no resequencing
>         needed on the receiver (except if there's re-ordering on the
>         final hop).
>
>       * In order to guarantee no resequencing in the network (DETNET
>         approach), only the the worst case latency can be guaranteed,
>         and every packet has to have that same worst-case latency.
>       * When you leave resequencing to the receiver (end-to-end
>         approach), most of the packets arrive earlier than they would
>         with DETNET, but out of order ones might not. Then the
>         application chooses whether it wants to wait.
>
>     [ms] My point is different: There seem to be other working groups
>     in the IETF that do talk about “low latency” as well but
>     apparently they also do need in-order delivery of packets, too. So
>     the assumption that e.g. a link layer technology can simply
>     disable in-order delivery for all “low latency” applications seems
>     not correct. The reality may be a bit more complex.
>
>     The 3 DupACK rule in TCP led the Internet not to follow the
>     end-to-end principle on re-sequencing. Now we're removing the 3
>     DupACK rule, we can take advantage of the e2e principle.
>
>     [ms] For TCP, three DupACKS are a SHOULD in RFC 5681 and RFC 5681
>     is standards track. So the bar for “removing” that rule for TCP is
>     not low…
>
>     [ms] Also, the end-to-end principle comes with tradeoffs. For
>     instance, relying on the end-to-end principle for recovery of bit
>     errors is not efficient. For in-order delivery there are tradeoffs
>     as well, see e.g. Section 4 in draft-ietf-tcpm-rack-04. There may
>     be no free lunch.
>
>     Of course, an application might choose to use TCP and L4S, rather
>     than UDP and L4S (e.g QUIC). Then there could still be HoL
>     blocking in the receiving TCP stack. But at least there's no HoL
>     blocking in the network, and the app can choose between stream
>     (TCP) or datagram (UDP).
>
>     [ms] If LRO/GRO in the receiving TCP stack gets messed up, I fail
>     to see the benefit (see draft-ietf-tcpm-rack-04).
>
>     Michael
>
>
>     Bob
>
>     On 06/11/2018 19:20, Scharf, Michael wrote:
>
>         A comment on the TCPM presentation "L4S and RACK":
>
>           
>
>         As far as I understand, the DETNET WG in RTG area has quite some uses cases for ultra-low latency transport - in particular also with bounded jitter. And some of these applications (e.g. using UDP) apparently may not be able to tolerate *any* out-of-order packet delivery.
>
>           
>
>         So perhaps some cross-area alignment on ulta-low-latency application requirements would be useful?
>
>           
>
>         Michael
>
>         (who recently had to review draft-ietf-detnet-architecture)
>
>           
>
>           
>
>
>
>
>
>     -- 
>
>     ________________________________________________________________
>
>     Bob Briscoehttp://bobbriscoe.net/
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> ________________________________________________________________
> Bob Briscoehttp://bobbriscoe.net/
>
>
>
> -- 
> ________________________________________________________________
> Bob Briscoehttp://bobbriscoe.net/

-- 
________________________________________________________________
Bob Briscoe                               http://bobbriscoe.net/