On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 5:30 AM, Robin Whittle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 1 - We have achieved consensus on very little:
Too true! So, let me turn the question on it's head: 1. What are the important, answerable questions for which we have failed to find consensus? In other words, what important questions are we still arguing about which have a factual answer but we don't have a consensus on what that answer is? 2. Why is each question important? 3. How can we go about researching each question in order to find the answer? For example: Question: Is it permissible to have a transmission delay on the first packet, as seen in TRRP? This has a factual answer. There is some number of milliseconds beneath which the user never notices the delay. There is some number of seconds above which the user is consistently disappointed by the network performance. And there is a gray zone between the two. We can design an experiment which lets us determine what those numbers are. Why is it important: If a first-packet delay is unacceptable, this excludes virtually every pull-cache mapping system from consideration, including TRRP and one of the LISPs. How do we test: Build a router that simulates the delay characteristics expected of TRRP. Install it in a den of net geeks on their Internet link. Observe. Simulation characteristic: If no packets for this packet's destination have been transmitted in the past 15 minutes, delay this packet by X ms. Otherwise, transmit immediately. Experiment methodology: Instruct the users to inform you if they believe the network is running slow. Have the software pick a new delay each day. Each day there is a 50% chance that X=0. If it's not zero then pick a random value between 50 and 2000 milliseconds. Don't look at the numbers until after the test is over (double-blind). At the end of the test, compute the correlation between user complaints and the delay values that the machine logged. Regards, Bill Herrin -- William D. Herrin ................ [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/> Falls Church, VA 22042-3004 -- to unsubscribe send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word 'unsubscribe' in a single line as the message text body. archive: <http://psg.com/lists/rrg/> & ftp://psg.com/pub/lists/rrg
