Publication No 40089

Author(s)

Feller, F.*

Title

Benefits of an Increased Packet Size in High-Speed Packet Networks

Topics

Broadband Networks; Internet

Methods

Measurement and Trials; Protocol Engineering

Keywords

TRANSPORT NETWORKS; ETHERNET

Abstract

In packet-switched transport networks, the continuous growth of link bitrates translates into a proportional increase of the packet rate and may turn packet processing into a bottleneck. One counter-measure is to increase the maximum size of packets exchanged between end systems. The effect of this approach, however, depends on traffic characteristics. While it has been proven efficient for bulk data transfers, to our knowledge, it has not been evaluated for the Internet's traffic mix yet. This paper provides a first assessment based on traffic traces of a representative subset of Internet applications. We first discuss the fundamental mechanisms and factors defining the packet rate. Based on measured traces, we evaluate the gains achievable for HTTP traffic. For a common configuration, a fourfold packet size increase would cut the packet rate by two thirds. Further packet size increases combined with protocol optimizations allow reductions of up to one order of magnitude.

Year

2010

Reference entry

Feller, F.
Benefits of an Increased Packet Size in High-Speed Packet Networks
Report, IKR, Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, April 2010

BibTex file

Download  [BIBTEX]

Full Text

No full text available online. To obtain a copy of the publication, please mail to mail@ikr.uni-stuttgart.de and refer to "Publication number 40089".