Skip to main content

Deadline-aware Transport Protocol
draft-shi-quic-dtp-03

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".
Authors Yong Cui , Zhiwen Liu , Hang Shi , Jie Zhang , Kai Zheng , Wei Wang
Last updated 2021-01-21 (Latest revision 2020-07-25)
RFC stream (None)
Formats
Additional resources
Stream Stream state (No stream defined)
Consensus boilerplate Unknown
RFC Editor Note (None)
IESG IESG state I-D Exists
Telechat date (None)
Responsible AD (None)
Send notices to (None)
draft-shi-quic-dtp-03
QUIC                                                              Y. Cui
Internet-Draft                                                    Z. Liu
Intended status: Informational                                    H. Shi
Expires: July 25, 2021                                          J. Zhang
                                                     Tsinghua University
                                                                K. Zheng
                                                                 W. Wang
                                                                  Huawei
                                                        January 21, 2021

                   Deadline-aware Transport Protocol
                         draft-shi-quic-dtp-03

Abstract

   This document defines Deadline-aware Transport Protocol (DTP) to
   provide block-based deliver-before-deadline transmission.  The
   intention of this memo is to describe a mechanism to fulfill
   unreliable transmission based on QUIC as well as how to enhance
   timeliness of data delivery.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on July 25, 2021.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of
   publication of this document.  Please review these documents

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Motivation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Design of DTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.1.  Abstraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     3.2.  Architecture of DTP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     3.3.  Deadline-aware Scheduler  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.4.  Deadline-aware Redundancy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     3.5.  Loss Detection and Congestion Control . . . . . . . . . .   9
   4.  Extension of QUIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     4.1.  New Frame: BLOCK_INFO Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  10
     4.2.  Adjusted QUIC Frame: Timestamped ACK Frame  . . . . . . .  10
     4.3.  Redundancy Packet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   5.  DTP Use Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.1.  Block Based Real Time Application . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
     5.2.  API of DTP  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  12
       5.2.1.  Data Transmission Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . .  13
       5.2.2.  Feedback Functions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   6.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   7.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   8.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  16

1.  Introduction

   Many emerging applications have the deadline requirement for their
   data transmission.  However, current transport layer protocol like
   TCP [RFC0793] and UDP [RFC0768] only provide primitive connection
   establishment and data sending service.  This document proposes a new
   transport protocol atop QUIC [QUIC] to deliver application data
   before end-to-end deadline.

1.1.  Conventions

   The keywords MUST, MUST NOT, REQUIRED, SHALL, SHALL NOT, SHOULD,
   SHOULD NOT, RECOMMENDED, NOT RECOMMENDED, MAY, and OPTIONAL, when
   they appear in this document, are to be interpreted as described in
   [RFC2119].

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

2.  Motivation

   Many applications such as real-time media and online multiplayer
   gaming have requirements for their data to arrive before a certain
   time i.e., deadline.  For example, the end-to-end delay of video
   conferencing system should be below human perception (about 100ms) to
   enable smooth interaction among participants.  For Online multiplayer
   gaming, the server aggregates each player's actions every 60ms and
   distributes these information to other players so that each player's
   state can be kept in sync.  Data missing the deadline is useless
   since it will be overwrote by the new data.

   These real-time applications have following common features:

   o  They tend to generate and process the data in block fashion.  Each
      block is a minimal data processing unit.  Missing a single byte of
      data will make the block useless.  For example, video/audio
      encoder produces the encoded streams as a series of block(I,B,P
      frame or GOP).  Decoder consumes the frame into the full image.
      For online games, the player's commands and world state will be
      bundled together as a message.

   o  They will continuously generate new data.  Different from web
      browsing or file syncing, real-time applications like video
      conferencing and online multiplayer gaming have uninterruptedly
      interactions with users, and each interaction requires a bunch of
      new data to be transmitted.

   o  They prefer the timeliness of data instead of reliability since
      data missing deadline are useless to application and will be
      obsoleted by newer data.  For example in multiplayer online games,
      the gaming server will broadcast the latest player states to every
      client, and the old information does not matter if it can not be
      delivered in time.  So the meaningful deadline of the application
      is actually the block completion time i.e., the time between when
      the block is generated at sender and when the block is submitted
      to application at receiver.

   However, current transport layer protocols lack support for block-
   based deadline delivery.  TCP guarantees reliability so it will waste
   network resource to transmit stale data and cause fresh data to miss
   its deadline.  UDP is unreliable but it doesn't drop data according
   to deadline, all data have the same chance to be dropped indeed.
   QUIC makes several improvements and introduces Stream Prioritization
   [QUIC] to enhance application performance, but prioritization is not
   enough for enhancing timeliness.

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   Insufficiency of existing transport layer forces applications to
   design their own customized and complex mechanism to meet the
   deadline requirement.  For example, the video bitrate auto-adjustment
   in most streaming applications.  But this is a disruption to the
   Layered Internet Architecture, forcing applications to worry about
   network conditions.

   This document proposes Deadline-aware Transport Protocol (DTP) to
   provide deliver-before-deadline transmission.  DTP is implemented as
   an extension of QUIC (Refer to [Section 4]) because QUIC provides
   many useful features including full encryption, user space
   deployment, zero-RTT handshake and multiplexing without head-of-line
   blocking.

3.  Design of DTP

   The key insight of DTP is that these real-time applications usually
   have multiple blocks (As shown in Figure 1 below) to be transferred
   simultaneously and these blocks have diverse impact on user
   experience(denoted as priority).  For example, audio data is more
   important than video stream in video conferencing.  Central region is
   more important than surrounding region in 360 degree video.
   Foreground object rendering is more important than the background
   scene in mobile VR offloading.

   The priority difference among multiple blocks makes it possible to
   drop low priority data to improve timeliness of high priority data
   delivery, which can enhance the overall QoE if resources allocated to
   blocks are correctly prioritized.  In this section, we describe the
   mechanism which enables DTP to leverage that insight.

3.1.  Abstraction

   DTP provides block-based data abstraction for application.
   Application MUST attach metadata along with the data block to
   facilitate the scheduling decision, those metadata include:

   o  Each block has a deadline requirement, meaning if the block cannot
      arrive before the deadline, then the whole block may become
      useless because it will be overwrote by newer blocks.  The
      application can mark the deadline timestamp indicating the
      deadline of its completion time.  In the API of DTP, the deadline
      argument represents the desired block completion time in ms.

   o  Each block has its own importance to the user experience.  The
      application can assign each block a priority to indicate the
      importance of the block.  The lower the priority value, the more
      important the block.  The priority argument also indicates the

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

      reliability requirement of the block.  The higher priority, the
      less likely the block will be dropped by sender.

3.2.  Architecture of DTP

   The sender side architecture is shown in Figure 1:

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

                            +-------------+
                            |             |
                            | Application |
                            |             |
                            +-------------+
                                   |
                                   |
                                   V
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 |         Block 0                Block 1                   Block n       |
 | +--------+----------+  +--------+----------+     +--------+----------+ |
 | |Metadata|Data Block|  |Metadata|Data Block| ... |Metadata|Data Block| |
 | +--------+----------+  +--------+----------+     +--------+----------+ |
 |                                                                        |
 | (Metadata includes Deadline and Priority)                              |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
                                   |
                                   |
                                   v
                            +-------------+
                            |             |
                            |  Scheduler  |
                            |             |
                            +-------------+
                                   |
                                   |
                                   v
                            +-------------+
                            |             |
                            | Redundancy  |
                            |             |
                            +-------------+
                                   |
                                   |
                                   v
                            +-------------+
                            |             |
                            | Congestion  |
                            | Control     |
                            +-------------+
                                   |
                                   v
                 Figure 1: The Architecture of DTP

   In receiver side, the transport layer will receive data and
   reassemble the block.  The process is symmetric with the sender side.
   It first goes through packet parsing and redundancy processing
   module.  Transport layer also keeps track of the deadline of each

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 6]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   block.  When receiver calls RECV function (Refer to [Section 5]), the
   transport layer returns the received in-ordered data to the
   application.

3.3.  Deadline-aware Scheduler

   The scheduler will pick the blocks to send and drop stale blocks when
   the buffer is limited.  This section describes the algorithm of DTP
   scheduler.

   Scheduler of DTP takes into account many factors when picking blocks
   in sender buffer to send.  The goal of the scheduler is to deliver as
   much as high priority data before the deadline and drop obsolete or
   low-priority blocks.  To achieve this, the scheduler utilizes both
   bandwidth and RTT measurement provided by the congestion control
   module and the metadata of blocks provided by the application to
   estimate the block completion time.  The scheduler will run each time
   ACK is received or the application pushes the data.

   A simple algorithm which only considers priority cannot get optimal
   result in transmitting deadline-required data.  Suppose the bandwidth
   reduces and the scheduler chooses not to send the low priority block.
   Then the bandwidth is restored.  The data block with lower priority
   is closer to the deadline than the high priority block.  If in this
   round the scheduler still chooses to send the high priority block,
   then the low priority block may miss the deadline next round and
   become useless.  In some cases, the scheduler can choose to send a
   low priority block because it's more urgent.  But it should do so
   without causing the high priority stream missing the deadline.  This
   example reveals a fundamental conflict between the application
   specified priority and deadline implicated priority.  DTP needs to
   take both priorities into consideration when scheduling blocks.

   DTP will combine all these factors to calculate real priority of each
   block.  Then the scheduler just picks the block with the highest real
   priority.  Scheduler of DTP will calculate the block remaining
   transmission time and then compare it to the deadline.  The closer to
   the deadline, the higher real priority.  And higher application
   specified priority will also result in higher real priority.  In this
   way, the scheduler can take both approaching deadline and
   application-specified priority into account.  Blocks which are
   severely overdue can be dropped accordingly.

3.4.  Deadline-aware Redundancy

   After the scheduler pick the block to send, the packetizer will break
   the block into packet streams.  Those packet streams will go through
   the redundancy module.  When the link is lossy and deadline is tight,

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 7]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   retransmission will cause the block missing the deadline.  Redundancy
   module has the ability of sending redundancy (like FEC Repair
   Symbols) along with the data that will help to recover the data
   packets (like FEC Source Symbols), this can avoid retransmission.

   We use unencrypted DTP packets as input to Redundancy Module because
   the loss of a DTP packet exactly corresponds to the loss of one
   Redundancy Packet.  And to perform the coding and decoding with
   packets of different sizes, some packets may need to be padded with
   PADDING Frame.  The present design of Redundancy Module follows the
   FEC Framework specified in [arXiv:1809.04822].  Figure 2 illustrates
   this framework:

              |
              |
              v
       +-------------+
       |             |
       |     DTP     |
       |  Scheduler  |
       |             |
       +------+------+
              |
           (1)|DTP Packets
   +----------|-------------------------------------------+
   |          v                                           |
   |  +-------+------+                    +------------+  |
   |  |              | (2)DTP Payload     |            |  | DTP
   |  |  Redundancy  |------------------> | Redundancy |  | Redundancy
   |  |  Packtizing &|<------------------ | Scheme     |  | Module
   |  |  Grouping    | (2)Redundancy Data |            |  |
   |  +-------+------+                    +------------+  |
   |          |                                           |
   +----------|-------------------------------------------+
           (3)|Redundancy
              |Packets
              |
              v
                   Figure 2: DTP Redundancy Module

   Figure 2 above shows the mechanism of how the Deadline-aware
   Redundancy module works. (1) Redundancy Module first receives the
   unencrypted DTP packets from scheduler. (2) The Redundancy Scheme use
   DTP Payload (similar to FEC Repair Symbols) to generate Redundancy
   Data (similar to FEC Source Symbols). (3) Redundancy-protected DTP
   Packets and Redundancy Data will be packtized and grouped.
   Redundancy Packtizing and Grouping Part will generate FEC Payload

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 8]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   INFO (Figure 5) and attach it to the DTP Packets and Redundancy Data,
   generating Redundancy Packets (a Redundancy Packet with the header
   shown in Figure 5).  Once the protocol receives the Repair Symbols,
   they are sent to the receiver through the FEC Packets.  At the
   receiver-side, the received Redundancy Packets can be processed
   immediately.  The Redundancy Data is reconstituted from the
   Redundancy Packtizing and Grouping and passed to the underlying
   Redundancy Scheme to recover the lost DTP Packets.

   Although Redundancy Module allows recovering lost packets without
   waiting for retransmissions, it consumes more bandwidth than a
   regular, non-Redundancy-protected transmission.  In order to avoid
   spending additional bandwidth when it is not needed, design of
   Redundancy MUST allow defining which DTP packets should be considered
   as Redundancy Packets.  Currently we use a F flag from DTP Packet
   Header to indicate whether a packet is Redundancy-protected or not.
   The format of header will be described in [Section 4.3] later.

   The Redundancy Data generated in Redundancy module MUST be
   distinguished from application data payload.  Redundancy Data should
   not be transferred to the application upon reception, they are indeed
   generated by and for the Redundancy Scheme used by the transport
   protocol.  We use Redundancy Packet to transmit Redundancy Data
   [Section 4.3].

   There are multiple Redundancy Scheme candidates.  During the
   handshake process, a scheme will be negotiated for the DTP session,
   just like encryption scheme negotiation.  Currently DTP specifically
   chooses Reed-Solomon FEC Scheme as described in [arXiv:1809.04822].

3.5.  Loss Detection and Congestion Control

   This document reuses the congestion control module defined in QUIC
   [QUIC].  Congestion control module is responsible to send packets,
   collects ACK and do packet loss detection.  Then it will put the lost
   data back to the retransmission queue of each block.  Congestion
   control module is also responsible to monitor the network status and
   report the network condition such as bandwidth and RTT to scheduler.

4.  Extension of QUIC

   DTP is implemented as an extension of QUIC by mapping QUIC stream to
   DTP block one to one.  In that way, DTP can reuse the QUIC stream
   cancellation mechanism to drop the stale block during transmission.
   And DTP can also utilize the max stream data size defined by QUIC to
   negotiate its max block size.  Besides, the block id of DTP can also
   be mapped to QUIC stream id without breaking the QUIC stream id
   semantic.

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                 [Page 9]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   DTP endpoints communicate by exchanging packets.  And the payload of
   DTP packets, consists of a sequence of complete frames.  As defined
   in [QUIC], each frame begins with a Frame Type, indicating its type,
   followed by additional type-dependent fields.  Besides the many frame
   types defined in Section 12.4 of [QUIC], DTP introduces BLOCK_INFO
   Frame to support timeliness data transmission.  And DTP also makes
   adjustment on QUIC ACK Frame.  Another extension is introducing FEC
   packet to support FEC.

4.1.  New Frame: BLOCK_INFO Frame

   DTP adds a BLOCK_INFO frame (type=0x20) in the front of each block to
   inform scheduler of Block Size, Block Priority and Block Deadline.
   These parameters can be used to do block scheduling.  The BLOCK_INFO
   frame is as follows:

       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                        Stream ID (i)                        ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                        Block Size (i)                       ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                      Block Priority (i)                     ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                      Block Deadline (i)                     ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                   Figure 3: BLOCK_INFO Frame Format

   o  Stream ID: A variable-length integer indicating the stream ID of
      the stream.

   o  Block Size: A variable-length integer indicating the size of the
      block.

   o  Block Priority: A variable-length integer indicating the priority
      of the block.

   o  Block Deadline: A variable-length integer indicating the required
      transimission deadline.

4.2.  Adjusted QUIC Frame: Timestamped ACK Frame

   DTP add a new Time Stamp Parameter to QUIC ACK Frame.  Timestamped
   ACK frames are sent by reveiver to inform senders of the time when
   the packet the peer is acknowledging is received and processed.  ACK
   mechanism of DTP is almost the same with QUIC.  The format of the

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 10]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   Timestamped ACK frames is similar to that of the standard ACK Frames
   defined in section 19.3 of [QUIC]:

       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                     Largest Acknowledged (i)                ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                          Time Stamp (i)                     ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                          ACK Delay (i)                      ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                       ACK Range Count (i)                   ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                       First ACK Range (i)                   ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                          ACK Ranges (i)                     ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                          [ECN Counts]                       ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

              Figure 4: Timestamped ACK Frame Format

   Using this time stamp parameter we can calculate whether the prior
   blocks transmitted missing deadline or not, and we can also calculate
   the block completion rate before deadline.

4.3.  Redundancy Packet

   We use a F Flags in DTP Packet to distinguish which DTP packets is
   Redundancy-protected or not.  Figure 5 shows the Redundancy Packet
   Format.  If the flag is set, the Redundancy Payload INFO field is
   appended to the header.  The Redundancy Payload INFO is an opaque
   field for the protocol.  It is used by the Redundancy Scheme to
   identify the redundancy-protected data and communicate information
   about the encoding and decoding procedures to the receiver-side
   Redundancy Scheme.

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 11]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

       0                   1                   2                   3
       0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |F|   Flags(7)  |
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
                                   ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |              Redundancy Payload INFO (i)(if F set)          ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
      |                           Payload (i)                       ...
      +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

                   Figure 5: Redundancy Packet Format

   o  F: A flag indicating whether this DTP packets is FEC-protected or
      not.

   o  FEC Payload INFO: A variable-length integer containing the
      information of Redundancy Group ID and packet index in this
      Redundancy Group.

   o  Payload: The payload of the Redundancy Packet, containing DTP
      Payload or Redundancy Data.

5.  DTP Use Cases

5.1.  Block Based Real Time Application

   DTP can provide deliver-before-deadline service for Block Based Real
   Time Applications.  Applications like real-time media and online
   multiplayer gaming have deadline requirements for their data
   transimission.  These application also tend to generate and process
   the data in block fashion, for example, video/audio encoder produces
   the encoded streams as a series of block (I,B,P frame or GOP).  And
   these real-time applications usually have multiple blocks (As shown
   in Figure 1) to be transferred simultaneously.  DTP can optimize the
   data transmission of these applications by scheduling which block to
   be sent first.  And Redundancy Module of DTP can reduce
   retransmission delay.

5.2.  API of DTP

   DTP extends the send socket API to let application attach metadata
   along with the data block, and the API of DTP is structured as
   follows:

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 12]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

5.2.1.  Data Transmission Functions

   Send

      Format: SEND(connection id, buffer address, byte count, block id,
      block deadline, block priority) -> byte count

      The return value of SEND is the continuous bytes count which is
      successfully written.  If the transport layer buffer is limited or
      the flow control limit of the block is reached, application needs
      to call SEND again.

      Mandatory attributes:

      *  connection id - local connection name of an indicated
         connection.

      *  buffer address - the location where the block to be transmitted
         is stored.

      *  byte count - the size of the block data in number of bytes.

      *  block id - the identity of the block.

      *  block deadline - deadline of the block.

      *  block priority - priority of the block.

   Update

      Format: UPDATE(connection id, block id, block deadline, block
      priority) -> result

      The UPDATE function is used to update the metadata of the block.
      The return value of UPDATE function indicates the success of the
      action.  It will return success code if succeeds, and error code
      if fails.

      Mandatory attributes:

      *  connection id - local connection name of an indicated
         connection.

      *  block id - the identity of the block.

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 13]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

      *  block deadline - new deadline of the block.

      *  block priority - new priority of the block.

   Retreat

      Format: RETREAT(connection id, block id) -> result

      The RETREAT function is used to cancel the block.  The return
      value of RETREAT function indicates the success of the action.  It
      will return success code if succeeds, and error code if fails.

      Mandatory attributes:

      *  connection id - local connection name of an indicated
         connection.

      *  block id - the identity of the block.

   Receive

      Format: RECV(connection id, buffer address, byte count, [,block
      id]) -> byte count, fin flag, [,block id]

      The RECV function shall read the first block in-queue into the
      buffer specified, if there is one available.  The return value of
      RECV is the number of continuous bytes which is successfully read,
      and fin flag to indicate the ending of the block.  If the block is
      cancelled, the RECV function will return error code
      BLOCK_CANCELLED.  It will also returns the block id on which it
      receives if application does not specify it.

      If the block size specified in the RECV function is smaller than
      the size of the receiving block, then the block will be partial
      copied(indicated by the fin flag).  Next time RECV function is
      called, the remaining block will be copied, and the id will be the
      same.  This fragmentation will give extra burden to applications.
      To avoid the fragmentation, sender and receiver can negotiate a
      max block size when handshaking.

      Mandatory attributes:

      *  connection id - local connection name of an indicated
         connection.

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 14]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

      *  buffer address - the location where the block received is
         stored.

      *  byte count - the size of the block data in number of bytes.

      Optional attributes:

      *  block id - to indicate which block to receive the data on.

5.2.2.  Feedback Functions

   on_dropped

      Format: ON_DROPPED(connection id) -> block id, deadline, priority,
      goodbytes

      The ON_DROPPED function is called when a block is dropped.  The
      metadata of the dropped block such as block id, deadline, priority
      is attached.  The number of bytes delivered before its
      deadline(goodbytes) is returned.

      Mandatory attributes:

      *  connection id - local connection name of an indicated
         connection.

   on_delivered

      Format: ON_DELIVERED(connection id) -> block id, deadline,
      priority, delta, goodbytes

      The ON_DELIVERED function is called when a block is delivered.
      The metadata of the delivered block such as block id, deadline,
      priority is attached.  The number of bytes delivered before its
      deadline (goodbytes) and the difference between the block
      completion time and the deadline (delta) are returned.

      Mandatory attributes:

      *  connection id - local connection name of an indicated
         connection.

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 15]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   All these functions mentioned above are running in asynchronous mode.
   An application can use various event driven framework to call those
   functions.

6.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no actions for IANA.

7.  Security Considerations

   See the security considerations in [QUIC] and [QUIC-TLS]; the block-
   based data of DTP shares the same security properties as the data
   transmitted within a QUIC connection

8.  Normative References

   [arXiv:1809.04822]
              Michel, F., Coninck, Q., and O. Bonaventure, "Adding
              Forward Erasure Correction to QUIC", September 2018.

   [QUIC]     Iyengar, J. and M. Thomson, "QUIC: A UDP-Based Multiplexed
              and Secure Transport", draft-ietf-quic-transport-20 (work
              in progress), April 2019.

   [QUIC-TLS]
              Thomson, M. and S. Turner, "Using TLS to Secure QUIC",
              draft-ietf-quic-tls-20 (work in progress), April 2019.

   [RFC0768]  Postel, J., "User Datagram Protocol", STD 6, RFC 768,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC0768, August 1980,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc768>.

   [RFC0793]  Postel, J., "Transmission Control Protocol", STD 7,
              RFC 793, DOI 10.17487/RFC0793, September 1981,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc793>.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.

Authors' Addresses

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 16]
Internet-Draft                     DTP                      January 2021

   Yong Cui
   Tsinghua University
   30 Shuangqing Rd
   Beijing
   China

   Email: cuiyong@tsinghua.edu.cn

   Zhiwen Liu
   Tsinghua University
   30 Shuangqing Rd
   Beijing
   China

   Email: liu-zw16@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

   Hang Shi
   Tsinghua University
   30 Shuangqing Rd
   Beijing
   China

   Email: shi-h15@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

   Jie Zhang
   Tsinghua University
   30 Shuangqing Rd
   Beijing
   China

   Email: zhangjie19@mails.tsinghua.edu.cn

   Kai Zheng
   Huawei

   Email: kai.zheng@huawei.com

   Wei Wang
   Huawei

   Email: wangwei375@huawei.com

Cui, et al.               Expires July 25, 2021                [Page 17]