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It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

arxiv.org

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Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#21

Post by andrewflnr »

wmf wrote: post #6
7e wrote: post #5

TCP was replaced in the data centers of certain FAANG companies years before this paper.

If they keep it secret they don't get credit for it.

How do you figure? The right decision is the right decision, even if you don't tell people. (granting, for the sake of argument, that it is the right decision)

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#22

Post by signa11 »

runlaszlorun wrote: post #15

For those who might not have noticed, the author is John Ousterhout- best known for TCL/Tk as well as the Raft consensus protocol among others.

and more recently (?) the book : “a philosophy of software design”, highly recommended !

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#23

Post by nicman23 »

slt2021 wrote: post #14

the problem with trying to replace TCP only inside DC, is because TCP will still be used outside DC. Networking Engineering is already convoluted and troublesome as it is right now, using only tcp stack. When you start using homa inside, but TCP from outside things will break, because a lot of DC requests are created as a response for an inbound request from outside DC (like a client trying to send RPC request). I ca…

only thing homa makes sense is when there is no external tcp to the peers or at least not on the same context ie for roce

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#24

Post by bmitc »

tacitusarc wrote: post #16
bmitc wrote: post #13

Unrelated to this article, are there any reasons to use TCP/IP over WebSockets? The latter is such a clean, message-based interface that I don't see a reason to use TCP/IP.

Websockets is a layer on top of TCP/IP.

Yes, I know that WebSockets layer over TCP/IP. But that both misses the point and is part of the point. The reason that I ask is that WebSockets seem to almost always be used in the context of web applications. TCP/IP still seems to dominate control communications between hardware. But why not WebSockets? Almost everyone ends up building a message framing protocol on top of TCP/IP, so why not just use WebSockets which has bi-directional message framing built-in? I'm just not seeing why WebSockets aren't as ubiquitous as TCP/IP and only seem to be relegated to web applications.

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#26

Post by wmf »

andrewflnr wrote: post #21
wmf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they keep it secret they don't get credit for it.

How do you figure? The right decision is the right decision, even if you don't tell people. (granting, for the sake of argument, that it is the right decision)

Yeah, you get the benefit of secret tech (in this case faster networking) but people shouldn't give social credit for it because that creates incentives to lie. And, sadly, tech adoption runs entirely on social proof.

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#27

Post by jayd16 »

slt2021 wrote: post #14

the problem with trying to replace TCP only inside DC, is because TCP will still be used outside DC. Networking Engineering is already convoluted and troublesome as it is right now, using only tcp stack. When you start using homa inside, but TCP from outside things will break, because a lot of DC requests are created as a response for an inbound request from outside DC (like a client trying to send RPC request). I ca…

Are you imagining external TCP traffic will be translated at the load balancer or are you actually worried that requests out of an API Gateway need to be identical to what goes in?

I could see the former being an issue (if that's even implied by "inside the data center") and I just don't see how it's a problem for the latter.

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#29

Post by j16sdiz »

bmitc wrote: post #24
tacitusarc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websockets is a layer on top of TCP/IP.

Yes, I know that WebSockets layer over TCP/IP. But that both misses the point and is part of the point. The reason that I ask is that WebSockets seem to almost always be used in the context of web applications. TCP/IP still seems to dominate control communications between hardware. But why not WebSockets? Almost everyone ends up building a message framing protocol on top of TCP/IP, so why not just use WebSockets whic…

WebSocket is fairly inefficient protocol. and it needs to deal with the upgrade from HTTP. and you still need to implement you app specific protocol. This is adding complexity without additional benefit

It make sense only if you have an websocket based stack and don't want to maintain a second protocol.

Re: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter (2023)

#30

Post by wmf »

bmitc wrote: post #24
tacitusarc wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Websockets is a layer on top of TCP/IP.

Yes, I know that WebSockets layer over TCP/IP. But that both misses the point and is part of the point. The reason that I ask is that WebSockets seem to almost always be used in the context of web applications. TCP/IP still seems to dominate control communications between hardware. But why not WebSockets? Almost everyone ends up building a message framing protocol on top of TCP/IP, so why not just use WebSockets whic…

Interesting point. For example, Web apps cannot speak BitTorrent (because Web apps are not allowed to use TCP) but they can speak WebTorrent over WebRTC and native apps can also speak WebTorrent. So in some sense a protocol that runs over WebSockets/WebRTC is superior because Web apps and native apps can speak it.
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