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Replacing TCP in the DC is a lot easier now with the advent of smartnic/DPUs. You can make the server think they are using a perfect TCP connection even if the
by floatinglotus 4y ago
Replacing TCP in the DC is a lot easier now with the advent of smartnic/DPUs.
You can make the server think they are using a perfect TCP connection even if the protocol is different. And the opposite, the server/app can use a new protocol like json-stream-whatever and the smartnic can proxy it onto a TCP session.
It turns out that cheap single purpose NICs were great for standardizing on thr lowest common denominator (tcp/udp) but now that it’s clear that the network protocol is the bottleneck, we can imagine and implement new protocols while maintaining backward compatibility.
- wmf 4y agoYou can make the server think they are using a perfect TCP connection even if the protocol is different. I wouldn't go this route because by the time the data gets to the DPU you have already burned the cycles and paid the price of TCP. Offloading anything is tricky in general because the protocol for managing the offload needs to be leaner than the thing being offloaded.
- eklitzke 4y agoIt is way more complicated than this because in any heterogeneous network environment you need to be really careful about what happens then you have new protocols like this interacting for shared resources. There are even TCP congestion control algorithms that aren't mutually compatible (e.g. under congestion situations one algorithm will be more aggressive and dominate the available bandwidth).