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Simplemux. A generic multiplexing protocol
draft-saldana-tsvwg-simplemux-05

The information below is for an old version of the document.
Document Type
This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Active".
Expired & archived
Author Jose Saldana
Last updated 2017-01-27 (Latest revision 2016-07-26)
RFC stream (None)
Formats
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state Expired
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)

This Internet-Draft is no longer active. A copy of the expired Internet-Draft is available in these formats:

Abstract

The high amount of small packets present in nowaday's networks results in a low efficiency, when the size of the headers and the payload are in the same order of magnitude. In some situations, multiplexing a number of small packets into a bigger one is desirable in order to improve the efficiency. For example, a number of small packets can be sent together between a pair of machines if they share a common network path. Thus, the traffic profile can be shifted from small to larger packets, reducing the network overhead and the number of packets per second to be managed by intermediate routers. This document describes Simplemux, a protocol able to encapsulate a number of packets belonging to different protocols into a single packet. Small headers (separators) are added at the beginning of each multiplexed packet, including some flags, the length and a "Protocol" field. This allows the inclusion of a number of packets belonging to different protocols (multiplexed packets) on a packet of another protocol (tunneling protocol). In order to reduce the overhead, the size of the multiplexing headers is kept very low (it may be a single byte when multiplexing small packets).

Authors

Jose Saldana

(Note: The e-mail addresses provided for the authors of this Internet-Draft may no longer be valid.)