draft-hu-rtgwg-pre-ecn-wan
Precise ECN in WAN
This draft defines the precise ECN during used in WAN. With the
growing demand for AI computing power, the computational capacity of
a single Artificial Intelligence Data Center (AIDC) can no longer
meet the requirements of large-scale model training. This has led to
the emergence of cross-AIDC distributed model training, driving the
need for transmitting RoCEv2 packets over WAN networks. AI training
is highly sensitive to network packet loss, where even minimal packet
loss can significantly degrade training efficiency. Additionally,
elephant flows and extreme concurrent traffic impose higher demands
on network performance.
ECN achieves active feedback of network congestion by setting ECN
flag bits in the header of IP packets, which is an effective traffic
control method. RFC6040 introduces the application of ECN in WAN.
However, due to the much higher end-to-end delay in WAN than in DC,
and the frequent occurrence of instantaneous traffic bursts in WAN,
it is easy to trigger ECN at the wrong time. This draft focuses on
the precise use of ECN in WAN, by introducing different reactions of
ECN in different WAN transmission scenarios