FIELD

Aspects described herein generally relate to computer networking, remote computer access, virtualization, enterprise mobility management, and hardware and software components related thereto.

BACKGROUND

Path maximum transmission unit (PMTU) may be understood as maximum transmission unit (MTU) for sending IP packets which may be honored by each network component in the path. The path may include, for example, a client, a host, a software defined wide area network (SD-WAN), connectors, and other intermediary components and network tunnels. A client or host sending packets smaller than the PMTU is achieving suboptimal throughput and/or interactivity, and therefore wasting network resources. Sending packets larger than the PMTU may lead to loss and retransmission of packets and packet fragmentation, thereby leading to inefficiencies such as “black-holes,” where a network silently drops packets in transmission and eventually leading to dropped connections. Packets sized according to the PMTU may avoid these problems.

SUMMARY

The following presents a simplified summary of various aspects described herein. This summary is not an extensive overview, and is not intended to identify required or critical elements or to delineate the scope of the claims. The following summary merely presents some concepts in a simplified form as an introductory prelude to the more detailed description provided below.

Existing methods of discovering PMTUs are unreliable and inefficient. The existing methods use help from intermediaries in the path and target host, both of which may not be always available and cannot be relied upon. The existing methods also may use very primitive searches, e.g., binary search, and the searching may interfere with and at times may supersede congestion control. Furthermore, the existing methods are static and do not provide a flexibility to accommodate different overheads in different types of paths and changing network conditions.

To overcome limitations described above, and to overcome other limitations that will be apparent upon reading and understanding the present specification, aspects described herein are directed towards a deterministic, efficient, and dynamic PMTU discovery and adjustment without help from intermediaries and without transport or presentation-level protocol disruption, for varying network characteristics. The aspects disclosed herein use deterministic, efficient, and time-bound search strategies using bursts probe packets, trailers, pivots, and retry timers. The PMTU discovery based on these aspects may not cause a transport or presentation level protocol disruption. The aspects described herein also determine a performance optimal path for different types of data (e.g., bulk vs. interactive) by determining, in addition to a PMTU, throughput, latency, and loss percentage for each of a plurality of paths in a network. When the network conditions change (e.g., rerouting due to a gateway failover), the aspects disclosed herein may dynamically perform PMTU discovery and recalculate other parameters such as the throughput, latency, and loss percentage.

These and additional aspects will be appreciated with the benefit of the disclosures discussed in further detail below.

