RFC 6928 · EXPERIMENTAL · 2013

Increasing TCP's Initial Window

Overview

RFC 6928, “Increasing TCP's Initial Window”, is an Experimental document published in April 2013 by J. Chu, N. Dukkipati, Y. Cheng, M. Mathis. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

This document proposes an experiment to increase the permitted TCP initial window (IW) from between 2 and 4 segments, as specified in RFC 3390, to 10 segments with a fallback to the existing recommendation when performance issues are detected. It discusses the motivation behind the increase, the advantages and disadvantages of the higher initial window, and presents results from several large-scale experiments showing that the higher initial window improves the overall performance of many web services without resulting in a congestion collapse. The document closes with a discussion of usage and deployment for further experimental purposes recommended by the IETF TCP Maintenance and Minor Extensions (TCPM) working group.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Experimental” means

Describes a specification that is part of a research or development effort, published so the community can gain experience with it.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 6928 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

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