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From: geof@apolling.UUCP (Geof Cooper)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Sun routers...
Message-ID: <8708311733.AA00238@apolling.imagen.uucp>
Date: Mon, 31-Aug-87 13:33:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: apolling.8708311733.AA00238
Posted: Mon Aug 31 13:33:58 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 00:42:21 EDT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: imagen!geof@decwrl.dec.com
Organization: The ARPA Internet
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 > This isn't exactly a failing of the standards, except maybe by
 > omission.....

Actually, I think it IS a failing of the standards (by the way,
some people misread my message -- I'm in favor of load sharing.
I want EVERYONE to do it).

Clearly, implementors have found ad hoc ways of achieving load
sharing.  We've seen three here (random choice, round robin,
choose the first response ("load-biased random"?)).

What are the implications of each to network congestion?  Network
reliability?  One implementor points out that the load-sharing
decision must not be made every packet.  How frequently is right?

How do the different schemes interact?  Are there some combinations
that make network congestion worse?

There are non-trivial issues of network congestion and performance
at stake.  A standard is supposed to address these by causing even
the most naive implementor to use a "good" technique.  The standard
also ensures that everyone addresses the problem.  There are certainly
gateways out there today (we have some) that don't support ANY ad-hoc
load sharing system.

So if we think that load-sharing is important (I do), and we know
that it is tricky (cf above questions) then this is exactly the
sort of thing the standards should address.

- Geof