Reordering (was Re: TCP limitations ...)

[vern@aciri.org]

> The reordering events should only occur on protection or
> route changes.

Perhaps, but some argue that the increasing use of multi-pathing internal
to routers will mean that reordering will be fairly common.  The relevant
paper is:

	J.C.R. Bennett, C. Partridge, and N. Shectman,
	Packet Reordering is Not Pathological Network Behavior,
	IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, Vol. 7, Number 6,
	December 1999, pgs 789--799. 

Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be available on-line, except through
ACM's digital library (which you have to pay for).  The authors found
frequent reordering on packets sent through MAE-East.  My paper on
Internet packet dynamics, available as the first 1999 paper off of
http://www.aciri.org/vern/papers.html, likewise found the reordering is
not infrequent, though that was looking at older data (from 1994/1995).

		Vern