[HN Gopher] The Homa Network Protocol
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       The Homa Network Protocol
        
       Author : harporoeder
       Score  : 38 points
       Date   : 2024-12-30 20:04 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (lwn.net)
 (TXT) w3m dump (lwn.net)
        
       | wmf wrote:
       | Various previous discussions:
       | 
       | It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter position paper
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33401480
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42168997
       | 
       | Review of Homa protocol
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28204808
       | 
       | Review of Linux implementation of Homa
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28440542
       | 
       | TCP vs. RPC part 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34871670
       | part 2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34871710 part 3
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35228716
        
       | meltyness wrote:
       | Without regard to the detailed background, design or analysis,
       | the approach of plucking a concern out of the Network/Data Link
       | layer (prioritization / QoS) and moving it up to the Transport is
       | a remarkably simple / clever start.
       | 
       | At least that's how I picture the start of the study of such a
       | design.
        
         | wmf wrote:
         | Congestion control has always(ish) been in the transport layer.
        
           | meltyness wrote:
           | TCP congestion control is a disaster. Setting DCTCP slightly
           | improves things but for big slow pipes it can be impossible
           | to get near line rate. Congestion control's intent also
           | differs from QoS/CoS. It's also a 'reactive' design rather
           | than a constructive one, usually a bad sign. Not to mention
           | that TCP is itself really complex and susceptible to receiver
           | resource exhaustion.
           | 
           | Still getting into the reading here, but making my intuition
           | a little bit more explicit, it seems that at least the
           | design, but possibly the implementation of Homa actually
           | hinges on datacenter switches QoS queues being configured
           | with a policy to explicitly respect the receiver-assigned
           | priorities... cool!
        
       | sesm wrote:
       | For broader context: SCTP is already in the kernel, solves many
       | of the same issues and has been used in mobile core networks for
       | decades.
        
       | pclmulqdq wrote:
       | Is anyone actually using Homa? I have heard that it has a few
       | fundamental issues as described in the paper, and many people who
       | want what Homa offers are using their own thing.
        
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       (page generated 2024-12-30 23:00 UTC)