Subject: [bmwg] Inital COmments on draft-popoviciu-bmwg-ipv6benchmarking-01.txt

From: "Jerry Perser" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 11:17:52 -0700

Three comments to start with.  I will add more as I do more rereading.

Section 4.1

The "Two types of media are commonly deployed" refer to core networks and
enterprise networks.  They and not the two common media for devices that
create the IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.  At the next IETF meeting, count how many
people are using SONET on their laptops.  The two types of media are
commonly deployed for IP clients are 802.3 and 802.11.  If your focus is
IPv6 Benchmarking, then consider changing the media to refer to 802.3 and
802.11.  If you focus is benchmarking core or enterprise routers, then
change the title.

Section 4.1.2

In my opinion, testing frames sizes greater than 1518 results in no useful
information and should not be recommended for a few reasons:

1. Most IPv4 and IPv6 traffic comes from devices that have either 802.3 or
802.11 interface and are running a TCP/IP stack that is aware of this.
Frames coming out of these devices will be of the 1518 bytes or less.
Exception would be a dial-up link, where the MTU is sometimes decreased to
576.

2. Most networks are not homogeneous. Homogeneous in the sense that all
media links have the same MTU.  Network Admins set the MTU of the all
devices to the GCF (Greatest Common Factor).  With a mix of 802.3, SONET,
and 802.11, the GCF will be 1518.

3. For the same reason SONET first frames size is 64 bytes.  SONET (and
802.11) first frame size should be 40 bytes (an IPv4 TCP ACK).  But we test
this at 64 only because Ethernet has to pad it.  I looked at NLANR's data
for a few SONET links (http://pma.nlanr.net/Datacube/) and the frames size
ranged from 28 - 1500.  Could find anyone using SONET greater than 1500
bytes.

Section 6

I need to reread the draft again next week because I seem to miss the point
on why we needed an IPv6 benchmarking.  Sections 6.1 through 6.6 say "Same
as RFC2544."  There are no new benchmarks.  There are no other references to
other BMWG RFCs.  It talks about RFC1242/2544, but not RFC2285/2889, nor
RFC2432/3918.  Doesn't IPv6 support multicast?

One of my upcoming tasks is to add IPv6 support to Veriwave's benchmarking
suites.  This draft could be more helpful if it read more like a howto guild
in adapting IPv4 methodologies to IPv6.  One of my concerns is how to
support RFC2461.

When I start implementing IPv6, I will post my notes (as I did with
draft-ietf-bmwg-hash-stuffing-05.txt).

Jerry Perser
Veriwave
Main :  818-338-4000
Direct: 818-338-4112
Fax:    818-338-4005

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