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Vista's 'Next Gen' TCP/IP Stack
boyko.at.netqos writes "Microsoft's new Vista TCP/IP stack might be beneficial to businesses looking to increase use of their IT infrastructure... if they did it right. Ted Romer at Network Performance Daily writes: '[Vista] now allows us to throttle outbound traffic at a client or server. For example, you can throttle the bandwidth of a particular subnet to a particular server, giving some departments more access to the servers that they need. You can even restrict outgoing bandwidth for certain peer-to-peer applications like bit torrent. This shaping can also be handy when applied to servers, allowing less bandwidth for certain users/departments, and more for others. While consumers may debate whether Vista is a worthwhile upgrade, I believe it to be important for enterprise customers who will best be able to put Vista's capabilities to their fullest potential. Of course, I'm getting it for DirectX 10 games, but that's just me.'"
...let me choose how much bandwidth to allocate to each app, and their relative priority? I want my browser to go first, then Google talk, then any updates (OS, virus checker, firewall) and finally P2P. It's quite annoying that I can't do that on XP. Perhaps it's a tricky problem though.
because it sure reads like one
Microsoft is desperate to get business interested in their Vista product so will trot about all manner of reasons to buy it, but business are not biting, unless this Vista can make workers type faster or calc spreadsheets quicker or email faster than there is NO productivity gains unless wowing the coworker with a 3D AIGLX/Beryl like desktop counts as productive
if an Enterprise is worried about client bandwidth they would already be using a tool dedicated for the job like, say a Router
OK - it is nice, but it certainly is not new.
Of course, I'm getting it for DirectX 10 games, but that's just me
Just you? Wow, those will be some disappointing sales figures.
If that guy in accounting is spending all his time downloading movies off from bittorent, wouldn't it be better to fire him instead of shaping his packets??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
GRC | Security Now! Transcript of Episode #51 "Vista's Virgin Stack" http://www.grc.com/sn/SN-051.htm
"A gun is a tool, Marian. No better, no worse than any other tool. An axe, a shovel, or anything." Shane (1953)
Big deal. ______ has had this in the kernel since ______.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Yeah, right...because if history teaches us anything, its that Linux is easier to use then Windows.
Rather interesting that the quote in the summary here on slashdot skipped this (emphasis mine):
... it really doesn't do much. It may be slightly more convenient to configure QoS on your routers based on the tags rather than port numbers ... but that's about it.
FTFA: "Vista's ability to use centrally configured group-policies to push out policies to specific users or servers, and allows tagging of packets with the Diffserv code point values, so that our network infrastructure can see the marking and react to it in different ways - whether it's VoIP traffic, or TCP/IP business critical traffic, or web-surfing traffic. (Granted, this QoS doesn't guarantee anything, it just marks the packet in Windows and it is up to your network infrastructure to honor those tags.)"
So
- Roach
The network has different characteristics depending upon what point you are at on it.
... and then put a shaping router on the WAN links.
The WAN routers see the low bandwidth, higher latency serial links and such.
The servers/workstations see the high bandwidth, low latency ethernet links.
Do you really want your server(s) calculating its(their) window(s) based upon whether the request is originating across the WAN or next to it on the LAN?
This sounds like a good idea when you're talking about a single workstation, at home, connected to a cable connection or xDSL or whatever. But it sounds like soooooo many problems in the corporate environment.
Right now it is easy to find the server/workstation that is flooding the network. It's going to be very difficult when you have hundreds(thousands?) of machines that are ALL trying to maximize their bandwidth usage.
Personally, I'd prefer the ability to set the LAN parameters for the machines
Well, it's expensive. Are you going to waste a box that can run Vista on that? A box that can run shorewall and traffic shaping is a P100 with 64MB RAM, which can be found for free.
You have two options:
1. The Vista box shapes traffic for itself and nothing else. This isn't terribly effective as to have a good effect you need to shape all of the traffic, giving different hosts different priority.
2. You have the Vista box as a firewall for the network. In this case it's expensive, can be broken into, and if it is, you have a major mess because all your traffic will be going through it.
An old P100 with 64MB RAM running shorewall is practically invulnerable. No ports need to be open, excepting for SSH from the internal network, or not even that. You can run it from CompactFlash and have it with no moving parts at all. It'll quietly sit there for years shoveling packets back and forth with zero problems. It doesn't accept connections, it has no open ports of public services -- it's impossible to break into barring a kernel bug in the TCP stack.
It's obvious that no one has RTFA....
"(Granted, this QoS doesn't guarantee anything, it just marks the packet in Windows and it is up to your network infrastructure to honor those tags.) "
Vista supports Diffserv tagging based on the user/application/whatever, enforced via group policy. It's up to your network hardware to actually do the shaping.
If "easier to use" means "requires less knowledge", then Linux might not be "easier to use". But if "easier to use" means "consistently behaves the way a knowledgable person expects", then Linux is much "easier to use".
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain