Item — HN Reader

> … it should be possible to bring it into widespread usage by integrating it with RPC frameworks.

That’s a powerful word, “should”. Many software in the datacenter are almost as old as TCP itself, in whole or part. Difficult but working, they will continue to linger unless something more than six letters of aspiration is applied to reimagining and rebuilding that considerable bulk.

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It's theoretically much easier to introduce a new transport inside of a DC, since you're inside the network perimeter and you'll generally have control over policy-based filtering decisions.

The context here is TFA advocating for use of higher-level message-oriented frameworks instead of raw socket APIs so that they can use a non-TCP transport without changing the application code.

Within a DC/cloud provider network. This isn’t about protocols you’d see traversing the public internet until the cloud providers see value in a protocol and start to push it out through IETF (eg see QUIC which was done by a company that owned both the browser and the data center). If there’s a “small” SW improvement that lets you use your HW 10x more efficiently that’s totally worth it given the end of scaling. You either invest in SW or pay for custom ASIC development. You’re not getting a free lunch anymore by just waiting a few years and getting that 10x gain for “free”.