Hybrid TCP-UDP transport for Web traffic

: Most of the Web traffic today uses the HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), with the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) as the underlying transport protocol. TCP provides several important services to HTTP, including reliable data transfer and congestion control. Unfortunately, TCP is poorly suited for the short conversations that comprise a significant component of Web traffic. The overhead of setting up and tearing down TCP state amortizes poorly for these small connections. Moreover, emerging modern Web server systems employ HTTP redirection for server load-balancing and content distribution; such schemes require setting up (and tearing down) multiple TCP connections for servicing a single client request. We have designed and analyzed a hybrid scheme to address these issues. The scheme uses either TCP, or the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as the underlying transport protocol for carrying Web traffic. UDP is used for short transfers (including HTTP redirection), while TCP is used fo...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1999
• Where: IPCCC
• Authors: Israel Cidon, Raphael Rom, Amit Gupta, Christoph L. Schuba
• Keywords: Communications, HTTP Redirection, IPCCC 1999, Multiple Tcp Connections, Web Traffic