wex@cs.ULowell.EDU (Paul Wexelblat) (06/21/91)
I have heard the term "Lightweight Protocol" applied to LANs; Definition?? References?? Tnx, ...Wex
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (06/26/91)
In article <1991Jun20.202637.11801@ulowell.ulowell.edu> wex@cs.ulowell.edu writes: >I have heard the term "Lightweight Protocol" applied to LANs; >Definition?? The notion is a protocol with minimum overhead, perhaps optimized to some specific job, perhaps taking advantage of the fact that LANs are better behaved than long-haul networks (e.g., packet loss or corruption is rare and packet reordering is nearly unheard-of). The usual intent is to get higher speed or lower processing overhead than "traditional" protocols. Of course, this intent is starting to look pretty stupid when Van Jacobson can run TCP/IP at >45Mb/s on a desktop workstation if he can only find a network interface that's fast enough... An idea whose time has come and gone, I'd say. -- "We're thinking about upgrading from | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry