Exploiting Highly Reliable Networks with Careful Protocols

<_author_search_(david mosberger)>David Mosberger, <_author_search_(charles j. turner)>Charles J. Turner, and <_author_search_(larry l. peterson)>Larry L. Peterson 1

fdavidm,cjt,[email protected]

TR 94-14

Abstract

Optical interconnects often exhibit excellent reliability. This paper studies the potential for exploiting this reliability via network protocols that no longer assume unreliable links. Such protocols are termed ?careful protocols? as they have to be careful to preserve the reliability of the link to the application level. After giving a definition of careful protocols and discussing related work, the paper presents in detail a case study of a networking service that has been implemented, both as a traditional and as a careful protocol. The case study suggests that careful protocols can achieve considerably better performance than traditional ones but also shows that this is not trivial to achieve.

Department of Computer Science
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

1This work supported in part by ARPA Contract DABT63-91-C-0030 and by Hewlett Packard Company.