RE: FCIP/iFCP : Guarantee In-Order delivery for FC N/NL_ports

["Y P Cheng" <ycheng@advansys.com>]

> YP,
> Not sure where you are going here, the purpose of a standard is to permit
> interconnection with other manufactures equipment.
>
> .
> John L. Hufferd

John,

I guess that I failed miserably in communicating my thinking to this WG.

Most people if not all in this WG view iSCSI, iFCP, and FCIP as protocols to
be implemented by either hardware or software or the combination of.
Because their implementations could be software that takes advantage of
existing TCP stacks in different OS's that are proven working, this WG tries
real hard to fit the new protocols into the existing implementations.

In the world where I live, iSCSI, iFCP, and FCIP will be implemented in a
box or an adapter running RTOS or microcode with fresh new implementations.
While it is essential to intemperate with the world that runs the existing
TCP implementations, nothing prohibits the box and adapter to interoperate
with each other running in "fast mode" in correct TCP packets as long as
they obey the Internet fairness rule without creating so called "Super TCP".
In my adapter, I don't have to live with any old TCP implementations.  I
asked often how do we streaming data on a 10 Gb/sec network with roundtrip
time over 100 milliseconds?  I would like to hear discussions providing
answers to the above question.  The statement "the TCP implementation
guarantees in-order delivery and retries lost packets and has the necessary
flow control and congestion avoidance" does not answer the question for me.

If everyone agrees that this group can put iSCSI, iFCP, and FCIP together by
assuming the current TCP implementations having all the solutions, please
let me know.

Y.P.


> To:   "Matt Wakeley" <matt_wakeley@agilent.com>, "IPS Reflector"
>       <ips@ece.cmu.edu>
> cc:
> Subject:  RE: FCIP/iFCP : Guarantee In-Order delivery for FC N/NL_ports
>
>
>
> > > But, if iFCP and FCIP use TCP encapsulation, then, we back to
> > > square zero.)
> > Please explain why/how you think iFCP and FCIP do not require the
> > use of TCP?
> >
> > -Matt Wakeley
>
> Matt,
>
> Certainly, both drafts have proposed TCP.
>
> However, when two iFCP or two FCIP devices talk to another of its
> own kind,
> they have the freedom to use any protocol they wish, even SCTP, as long as
> the protocol provides reliable delivery.  This is because the frames are
> only received by another device of same implementation.  There is no
> interoperability issue with any legacy implementations.  Now, does the
> other
> protocol obeys the fairness rule of Internet?  I assume it would.
>
> Y.P.
>
>