Many technologies come and go, but those that have staying power are able to evolve to meet changing business and user needs. These rare birds also boast a champion, either in the form of an industry backer or a community of knowledgeable supporters. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) and UDP (User Datagram Protocol) are examples of the latter, continuing their usefulness and popularity thanks in part to a number of extensions designed by disparate entities to optimize the protocols for greater performance.
You’ve no doubt heard of HTTP/2 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Version 2.0), which supports Google’s SPDY enhancement that contains a number of approaches to reduce latency. If you use Cisco Nexus switches you may be using DCTCP (Data Center Transmission Control Protocol), which seeks to optimize congestion control algorithms. But have you explored the likes of TCP Anycast, or Structured Stream Transport (SST), or Datagram Congestion Control Protocol (DCCP)?
In a new article for Network World, “A Dozen Extensions to TCP/IP That Optimize Internet Connections,” I offer an overview of these and other new Internet Protocol optimizations. It is likely that at least a few of these would be impactful for your organization and would improve your Internet application experience.
Are you using any TCP/IP extensions? Which ones would you recommend? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Scott Hogg is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for GTRI.
