[Iccrg] Re: I-D ACTION:draft-irtf-iccrg-welzl-congestion-control-open-research-01.tx t

[Michael Scharf]

On Fri, 23 May 2008 at 02:46:40, Bob Briscoe wrote:
>>  3.1.1 Performance and robustness
>>  ...
>>     - What is the minimum support that is needed from routers in order
>>      to achieve significantly better performance than with end-to-end
>>      mechanisms?
>>
>> BC: Can you add the obvious: without damaging the end-to-end principle.
>
> I'd certainly agree to that. Co-authors?

The draft mentions the end-to-end principle in earlier sections, but
not explicitly in section 3.1. From the context it is clear that there
are implications. But, true, there should be an explicit statement
that router-supported congestion control may interfere with the e2e
principle.

However, this seems to raise some rather philosophical questions. The
applicabiliy of the e2e principle to congestion control has already
been discussed extensively, and this is apparently not a trivial
issue. For instance, [1] concludes that "congestion control is one
function that is not well suited to end-to-end implementation."  I
guess that not everyone will agree to this statement.

Deepening this discussion is propably beyond the scope of this
draft. But I could imagine to add one or two references that reflect
the discussions concerning the implication on the e2e principle.

Can anyone recommend relevant references other than [1]?

Michael


[1] T. Moors: "A critical review of "End-to-end arguments in system
design"", Proc. International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2002