Ran, On Jun 6, 2011, at 9:39 AM, RJ Atkinson wrote:
> > I would be reluctant to advocate use of a hash algorithm > as computationally expensive as MD5() for generating an > IPv6 Flow Label. > > My sense is that a thoughtful implementer likely would > choose the least computationally expensive algorithm > that would suffice to generate a Flow Label value > suitable for load-balancing purposes. > > As a use case, one might consider some sort of content server > with very large numbers of short-lived TCP sessions. If an > expensive algorithm (e.g. MD5()) were used in that case, > then the effort to compute the flow label might be am > interesting fraction of "new TCP session creation" overhead. > In turn, this might impair the scalability of that content > server. I suppose one could precompute a bunch ahead of time, but I agree with your comment. It's a good point. > > In any event, I'm quite comfortable with Brian's current > approach to document a possible algorithm that ought to > suffice without mandating any particular algorithm. > This really is a situation where the details are best > left to implementers (since no interoperability issue > would arise from different implementations using different > algorithms). I also agree. Bob -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list ipv6@ietf.org Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------
