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Status:

INFORMATIONAL

Author:

S. Floyd, Ed.

Stream:

IRTF

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DOI:  https://doi.org/10.17487/RFC5166

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Abstract

This document discusses the metrics to be considered in anevaluation of new or modified congestion control mechanisms for theInternet. These include metrics for the evaluation of new transportprotocols, of proposed modifications to TCP, of application-levelcongestion control, and of Active Queue Management (AQM) mechanismsin the router. This document is the first in a series of documentsaimed at improving the models that we use in the evaluation oftransport protocols.

This document is a product of the Transport Modeling Research Group(TMRG), and has received detailed feedback from many members of theResearch Group (RG). As the document tries to make clear, there isnot necessarily a consensus within the research community (or theIETF community, the vendor community, the operations community, orany other community) about the metrics that congestion controlmechanisms should be designed to optimize, in terms of trade-offsbetween throughput and delay, fairness between competing flows, andthe like. However, we believe that there is a clear consensus thatcongestion control mechanisms should be evaluated in terms oftrade-offs between a range of metrics, rather than in terms ofoptimizing for a single metric. This memo provides information for the Internet community.

For the definition ofStatus,seeRFC 2026.

For the definition ofStream, seeRFC 8729.