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

[David Robinson <David.Robinson@EBay.Sun.COM>]

Y P Cheng wrote:
> 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.

In general I have not seen people in this WG constraining the design
based
on TCP implementations, in fact some have been very abstract in their
comments
and referring to what has been proven in theory (if not limited test
implementations)
that does not reflect current widely deployed implementations.

If I read you correctly, you are asserting that there is a fundemental
problem
in the design on the TCP *protocol* which prevents it from taking
advantage
of a 10G/100ms network. If so what exactly do you see as a problem?
Since we
cannot (ips WG) cannot change TCP how should an IPS protocol work around
this
problem while still being friendly with other protocols?
 
> 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.

Conversely, if you feel that this group is designing to the TCP
implementations
instead of the protocol, please let us know.

	-David