Better Bandwidth Utilization

jtorin writes "Daniel Hartmeier (of OpenBSD fame) has written a short but interesting article which explains how to better utilize available bandwidth. In short it gives priority to TCP ACKs over other types of traffic, thereby making it possible to max both upload and download bandwidth simultaenously. Be sure to check ot the nice graphs! Also note the article on OpenBSD Journal. OpenBSD 3.3 beta is now stable enough for daily use, so why not download a snapshot from one of the mirrors and try it out?"

Comments

This will be of most use to ...

[adzoox]

I think this may be of most use to two way satellite connections and maybe to service providers - however; I don't see how one can get much faster than a cable modem or DSL connection - the internet comes through at the same bandwidth and speed whether I am wireless or T1 or cable modem/DSL - this is the majority of network traffic nowadays

Corporate networks are already optimized under 100 or gigabit ethernet with Cisco routers which automatically handle collisions and error corrections.

Note the article is all about low bandwidth setups

[jj_johny]

Daniel has done some good work in micromanaging the available bandwidth to make sure that ACKs get through to minimize retransmits due to drops as well as other causes. When you look at low bandwidth links the time in queue and to transmit can be much bigger than the near instananious transmission times that you expect on high capacity lines.

A little off topic but I always find it interesting that people with hicap gear (Foundry, Cisco, etc.) are always talking about QOS when it really only makes sense most times on low bandwidth lines. So his work is really important when you look at where it is in scheme of things - out at the end users line.