Netdev 0x16 - Keynote: It's Time to Replace TCP in the Datacenter

What people said

eklitzke · 2023-03 · Strong recommendation

You can obviously build an RPC protocol on top of TCP, people have been doing it for decades. However there are things that are difficult to efficiently implement on top of TCP (multiplexing different logical streams over the same connection, message priorities) in the TCP model, and some things that are impossible to implement over TCP (for example, you don't really have any ability to influence what happens during congestion control scenarios). There are also a bunch of things about TCP that are fundamentally inefficient on modern hardware. Do these things matter if you're running some RPC service over the internet with a Python backend? Almost certainly not. But if you read John Ousterhout's paper or watch his Netdev talk^[1] it's also pretty clear that this isn't the use case he's been talking about. He's talking about RPC in the datacenter, where in theory modern hardware is capable of delivering RPC messages with microsecond scale latency but in practice no RPC systems built on TCP come anywhere close to that. The Netdev talk I've linked below is really good and John makes a really thorough presentation of his ideas and what he's actually trying to optimize for. [1]: [VIDEO]

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hardwaresofton · 2023-02 · Strong recommendation

If you'd like to watch Ousterhoust explain Homa and his vision of replacing TCP: [VIDEO] Spoiler: Ousterhout is right, and the data shows he is right. Maybe not everyone knows it yet, or it's the kind of "right" that not everyone will ever get to (and we'll settle for "good enough" for much longer), but he is almost certainly right. Not to disparage the poster of this article of course -- I always love a good hot take or contrarian piece.

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hardwaresofton · 2023-02 · Recommendation

If you want to watch Outsterhout in talk form: Netdev 0x16 - Keynote: It's time to replace TCP in the datacenter: [VIDEO] Netdev is an amazing conference btw, it is insane that we get access to the trailblazing being shown off at conferences for free on places like YT.

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