[e2e] Packet reordering in Internet

[Manish Jain]

Thanks everyone for the useful pointers.

Based on the some pointers and past discussions, I understand that
routers in the current Internet have load-balancing implemented in a
way to preserve packet order within a TCP flow. Is that a safe
assumption? Are there any other mechanisms in the routers/switches
that could lead to packet reordering?

--
Manish

On Wed, Aug 12, 2009 at 9:50 AM, Bartek Belter<bart at man.poznan.pl> wrote:
> Hi Manish,
>
> Some time ago we did some experiments in the pan-European education network. The results of experiments were summarized in a paper.
> It is available here: http://tnc2005.terena.org/core/getfile.php?file_id=626 (Shall we worry about Packet Reordering?).
>
> Hope it helps.
>
> Best regards,
> Bartek
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org [mailto:end2end-interest-bounces at postel.org] On Behalf Of Manish Jain
> Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 11:57 PM
> To: end2end-interest at postel.org
> Subject: [e2e] Packet reordering in Internet
>
> Hello,
>
> I was wondering if there are measurement studies of Internet traffic quantifying the magnitude of packet reordering within a TCP flow. Is reordering a common problem for TCP in the current Internet? How about the load balancing features in the routers from major vendors : is it per flow basis or per packet basis, and if flow based load balancing is done, then how is the flow classification is done these routers?
> What could be/are other sources of reordering withing a TCP flow?
>
> Thanks,
> Manish
>
>
>