Network Working Group Q. Xie INTERNET-DRAFT Motorola R. R. Stewart C. Sharp Cisco I. Rytina Ericsson Expires in six months January 2001 SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension Status of This Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all provisions of Section 10 of RFC 2026 [RFC2026]. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. Abstract This document describes an extension to the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) [RFC2960] to provide unreliable data transfer services. The benefits of this extension includes unified congestion control over reliable and unreliable data streams, single association for multi-content data services, link level fault tolerance for unreliable data transfer, unreliable data stream multiplexing, etc. The unreliable data transfer service will also support partial payload checksum in order to facilitate bit-error tolerance media applications. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction................................................. 2 2. Conventions.................................................. 3 3. Unreliable Data Extension Design............................. 3 3.1 New INIT and INIT-ACK parameters.......................... 3 3.1.1 Unreliable Streams Parameter Definition............... 3 3.1.2 Partial Checksum Parameter Definition................ 5 3.2 New chunk definitions..................................... 5 3.2.1 Forward Cumulative TSN Chunk (FORWARD TSN)............ 5 3.2.2 Partial Checksum Data Chunk (P-DATA).................. 6 4. Unreliable Stream Operations................................. 8 4.1 Initialization of Unreliable Streams...................... 8 4.2 Send Unreliable Data...................................... 9 4.3 Receive Unreliable Data...................................10 4.4 Usage of the P-DATA chunk.................................10 Xie, et al [Page 1] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 5. Other Issues.................................................11 5.1 Unreliable Data Stream Multiplexing.......................11 5.2 Fault Tolerant Unreliable Data Transfer...................11 5.3 Unreliable Data Out-of-order Detection....................11 6. Acknowledgments..............................................12 7. Authors' Addresses...........................................12 8. References...................................................12 1. Introduction Taking advantage of the extensibility of SCTP, this document adds unreliable data transfer services to SCTP and an optional method to send SCTP Data Chunks with limited checksum coverage. The design presented here allows the co-existence of unreliable data streams and reliable streams in a single SCTP association. The following are some advantages for integrating unreliable data services into SCTP: 1) Unreliable extension to SCTP (U-SCTP) supports congestion control and congestion avoidance over unreliable data traffic; this is very desirable since it is much friendlier towards the network than UDP. 2) Some applications services can greatly benefit from U-SCTP by using a single SCTP association to carry both reliable content (e.g., text, billing, accounting, set-up information, etc.) and unreliable content (e.g., Fiber channel, SCSI over IP, etc.). 3) U-SCTP allows the use of a unified congestion control across both reliable and unreliable traffic between two endpoints. This has the potential for better utilization of network resources, achieving similar objectives of the Endpoint Congestion Management (ecm) Working Group. 4) Taking advantage of SCTP data chunk bundling function, sending multiple unreliable data streams across a single SCTP association creates a very efficient and effective way of data multiplexing. 5) U-SCTP gives even the unreliable data traffic "link-level" fault tolerance, taking advantage of SCTP multi-homing ability. This is not possible with UDP. 6) U-SCTP can achieve either ordered or unordered unreliable data transfer, while UDP is incapable of controlling the order of data delivery. 7) An application can control its retransmission policies if retransmission is deemed needed. 8) Some applications may find it desirable to limit the coverage of the Adler32 checksum over the actual data chunks. Xie, et al [Page 2] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 2. 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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119]. 3. Unreliable Data Extension Design With the present extension, an SCTP data sender will be allowed to designate a sub-set of its outbound streams to be unreliable streams. The user data chunks sent to an unreliable stream will share the same TSN space, the same congestion control/avoidance treatment, and the same transmission priority as those sent to a reliable stream, but they will not be retransmitted if they are found missing at the data receiver. 3.1 New INIT and INIT-ACK parameters The following new optional parameter, are added to the INIT and INIT ACK chunks. At the initialization of the association, the sender of the INIT or INIT ACK chunk may include these parameters to indicate its ability to support these features. Parameter Name Status Type Value ------------------------------------------------------------- Unreliable Streams Optional 0xC000 Partial Checksum support Optional 0xC004 3.1.1 Unreliable Streams Parameter Definition The Unreliable Streams parameter is added to the INIT and INIT ACK chunks. At the initialization of the association, the sender of the INIT or INIT ACK chunk shall include this optional parameter to inform its peer that it is able to support unreliable streams and to designate its unreliable outbound streams. If no streams are marked as unreliable but the sender does support the unreliable streams option the sender SHOULD include a parameter with no u-stream ranges and a fixed Parameter Length of 4. 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Parameter Type = 0xC000 | Parameter Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | u-stream start #1 = US1 | u-stream end #1 = UE1 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ / / \ . . . . \ / / +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | u-stream start #k = USk | u-stream end #k = UEk | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Type: 16 bit u_int Xie, et al [Page 3] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 0xC000, indicating Unreliable Streams parameter Length: 16 bit u_int Indicate the size of the parameter in octets, including the Type, Length, u-stream start, and u-stream end fields. u-stream start: 16 bit u_int, and u-stream end: 16 bit u_int Each pair of u-stream start and u-stream end fields defines one or more unreliable outbound streams, starting from stream number US and ending with stream number UE. The union of all the pairs together defines the complete sub-set of all unreliable outbound streams. The following are some examples of unreliable stream designation (assuming OS = 10): Example 1: (assuming OS = 10) +------------+-----------+ |type=0xC000 | length=8 | Streams Mode +------------+-----------+ ==> --------------------- | u-start= 3 | u-end= 5 | 0 - 2 reliable +------------+-----------+ 3 - 5 unreliable 6 - 9 reliable Example 2: (assuming OS = 10) +------------+-----------+ |type=0xC000 | length=12 | Streams Mode +------------+-----------+ ==> --------------------- | u-start= 3 | u-end= 5 | 0 - 2 reliable +------------+-----------+ 3 - 9 unreliable | u-start= 6 | u-end= 9 | +------------+-----------+ Example 3: (assuming OS = 10) +------------+-----------+ |type=0xC000 | length=12 | Streams Mode +------------+-----------+ ==> --------------------- | u-start= 9 | u-end= 9 | 0 unreliable +------------+-----------+ 1 - 8 reliable | u-start= 0 | u-end= 0 | 9 unreliable +------------+-----------+ Example 4: (assuming OS = 10) +------------+-----------+ |type=0xC000 | length=8 | Streams Mode +------------+-----------+ ==> --------------------- Xie, et al [Page 4] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 | u-start= 0 | u-end= 9 | 0 - 9 unreliable +------------+-----------+ Example 5: (assuming OS = 10) +------------+-----------+ |type=0xC000 | length=4 | Streams Mode +------------+-----------+ ==> --------------------- 0 - 9 reliable 3.1.2 Partial Checksum Parameter Definition The Partial Checksum Parameter is added to the INIT and INIT ACK chunks. At the initialization of the association, the sender of the INIT or INIT ACK chunk shall include this optional parameter to inform its peer that it is able to support the partial checksum P-DATA (Chunk Type = 0xC3 or 195), see section 3.2.2. 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Parameter Type = 0xc004 | Parameter Length=4 | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ 3.2 New chunk definitions The following new control chunks, are added to support two new features in SCTP. The FORWARD TSN supports the unreliable stream. The Partial Checksum Data Chunk will support Data chunks that are not completely covered by the Adler32 checksum in the SCTP packet header. Chunk Type Chunk Name ------------------------------------------------------ 11000000 Forward Cumulative TSN (FORWARD TSN) 11000011 Partial Checksum Data Chunk (P-DATA) 3.2.1 Forward Cumulative TSN Chunk Definition (FORWARD TSN) This new chunk type 'Forward Cumulative TSN chunk' shall be used by the data sender to inform the data receiver to adjust its cumulative received TSN point forward because some missing TSNs are unreliable data chunks and are hence omitted from retransmission. 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0| Chunk Flags |0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0| +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | New Cumulative TSN | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Chunk Flags: Set to all zeros on transmit and ignored on receipt. New Cumulative TSN: 32 bit u_int This indicates the new cumulative received TSN to the data receiver. Upon the reception of this value, the data receiver shall consider Xie, et al [Page 5] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 any missing TSNs earlier than this value received and stop reporting them as gaps in the subsequent SACKs. 3.2.2 Partial Checksum Data Chunk (P-DATA) Note, fragmentation MUST NOT be performed on an unreliable user message. In other words, an unreliable user message MUST be sent in a single chunk regardless of its size. The following format MUST be used for the P-DATA chunk: 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 +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ |1 1 0 0 0 0 1 1| Reserved|U|B|E| Length | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | TSN | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Stream Identifier S | Stream Sequence Number n | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Payload Protocol Identifier | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ | Checksum Coverage | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ \ \ / User Data (seq n of Stream S) / \ \ +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ Reserved: 5 bits Should be set to all '0's and ignored by the receiver. U bit: 1 bit Same as in DATA [RFC2960], the (U)nordered bit, if set to '1', indicates that this is an unordered P-DATA chunk, and there is no Stream Sequence Number assigned to this P-DATA chunk. Therefore, the receiver MUST ignore the Stream Sequence Number field. Unordered P-DATA chunks MUST be dispatched to the upper layer by the receiver without any attempt to re-order them. B bit: 1 bit MUST be set to 1 by the sender. E bit: 1 bit MUST be set to 1 by the sender. Xie, et al [Page 6] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 Length: 16 bits (unsigned integer) This field indicates the length of the P-DATA chunk in bytes from the beginning of the type field to the end of the user data field excluding any padding. A P-DATA chunk with no user data field will have Length set to 20 (indicating 20 bytes). TSN: 32 bits (unsigned integer) This value represents the TSN for this P-DATA chunk. The valid range of TSN is from 0 to 4294967295 (2**32 - 1). TSN wraps back to 0 after reaching 4294967295. Stream Identifier S: 16 bits (unsigned integer) Identifies the stream to which the following the user data belongs. Stream Sequence Number n: 16 bits (unsigned integer) This value represents the stream sequence number of the following user data within the stream S. Valid range is 0 to 65535. Payload Protocol Identifier: 32 bits (unsigned integer) Same as in DATA [RFC2960], this value represents an application (or upper layer) specified protocol identifier. This value is passed to SCTP by its upper layer and sent to its peer. This identifier is not used by SCTP but can be used by certain network entities as well as the peer application to identify the type of information being carried in this P-DATA chunk. The value 0 indicates no application identifier is specified by the upper layer for this payload data. Xie, et al [Page 7] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 Checksum Coverage: 16 bits (unsigned integer) This field contains an integer that indicates how much User Data (in octets) of this P-DATA chunk is covered by the Adler32 checksum in the SCTP packet common header. (Note, all chunk headers, as well as the common header of the SCTP packet are always covered by the packet checksum, regardless of the value of the Checksum Coverage.) The coverage area is defined as starting from the first transmitted byte in the User Data part of the Chunk for exactly 'Checksum Coverage' bytes in length. For example, if a value of "5" appears in the Checksum Coverage field, only the first 5 bytes of the User Data are included in the calculation of the packet checksum. A value of "0" in the Checksum Coverage field will indicate that all the User Data in this P-DATA chunk is excluded from the packet checksum. The value of Checksum Coverage MUST NOT be larger than the length of the User Data, i.e., it MUST be smaller than or equal to Length - 20. User Data: variable length This is the payload user data. The implementation MUST pad the end of the data to a 4 byte boundary with all-zero bytes. Any padding MUST NOT be included in the Length field. A sender MUST never add more than 3 bytes of padding. 4. Unreliable Stream Operations In this section, we first defines the procedures for opening unreliable streams in an SCTP association. Then, we will discuss procedures for sending and receiving unreliable SCTP data chunks. 4.1 Initialization of Unreliable Streams If the SCTP data sender plans to send unreliable data, at the initialization of the association it MUST include the Unreliable Streams parameter in its INIT or INIT ACK chunk to indicate to its peer which of its outbound streams are going to be used as unreliable streams. Upon the reception of the Unreliable Streams parameter, the data receiver SHALL determine and record the mode (reliable or unreliable) of each inbound stream, as it allocates resource for its inbound streams. Note, if the data receiver does not support unreliable inbound streams, it SHOULD treat the Unreliable Streams parameter as an invalid or unrecognized parameter and respond to the data sender with an operational error, following the rules defined in Section 5.1 of [RFC2960]. Upon reception of the operational error indicating that its peer does not support unreliable streams, the data sender may choose to either: 1) end the initiation process, in consideration of the peer's inability of meeting the requested features for the new association, or 2) continue the initiation process, but with the understanding that ALL its outbound streams will be reliable. In either case, the data sender SHOULD inform its upper layer its peer's inability of supporting unreliable data transfer. Xie, et al [Page 8] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 Initiation of streams as reliable and/or unreliable may be under the control of the SCTP user. Hence, the ULP primitive "ASSOCIATE" (see Section 10.1 of [RFC2960]) should contain the optional U-stream-start and U-stream-end values. 4.2 Send Unreliable Data During the lifetime of the association, any user data sent to an unreliable stream will be treated as unreliable user data and will automatically be transmitted in unreliable mode. The SCTP data sender shall handle user data sent to an unreliable stream the same way as it handles user data sent to a reliable stream (i.e., the same timer rules, congestion control rules, failure detection rules, RTO control rules, etc.), with the following exceptions: A1) The sender maintains a "Peer.Cumulative.TSN" for each peer so as to track the latest cumulative TSN point of the peer (Note, this variable may already exist in a classic SCTP implementation for outqueue management and for detecting out-of-order SACKs). A2) Before retransmitting a DATA chunk (due to either a T3-rtx timer expiration as defined in 6.3.3 of [RFC2960] or a 4th missing indication as defined in 7.2.4 of [RFC2960]), the SCTP data sender MUST check whether the DATA chunk is being transmitted on an unreliable stream. If so, it will perform the following: B1) Check the value of the unreliable retransmission counter "Unrel.Trans.Count" value for the DATA chunk. This value may be set by the SCTP user to 0 (no retransmission) for complete unreliability, or N (where N >0) for limited reliability, at the time when the user message is passed to SCTP. B2) If the "Unrel.Trans.Count" of the chunk is currently greater than 0, the sender MUST retransmit the data chunk and then decrease the "Unrel.Trans.Count" by 1. The same rules for retransmission as defined in [RFC2960] SHALL be used for RTO calculation, destination selection, error reporting, etc. B3) If "Unrel.Trans.Count" is currently 0, the sender MUST NOT retransmit the data chunk. Instead, the sender MUST mark the data chunk as being finally acked. A3) whenever the data sender receives a SACK from the data receiver, it SHALL first process the SACK using the normal procedures as defined in [RFC2960] for classic SCTP, this includes the adoption of the Cumulative TSN ACK carried in the SACK as the new "Peer.Cumulative.TSN" if the SACK is found not out-of-order and processing any gap reports if present (see [RFC2960]). The data sender MUST then perform the following additional steps: C1) Try to further advance the "Peer.Cumulative.TSN" locally, that is, to move "Peer.Cumulative.TSN" up as long as the chunk next in the out-queue is marked as acknowledged. For example (assuming a SACK arrived with Cumulative TSN ACK=102), out-queue status after ==> out-queue after cmTSN normal SACK processing local advancement ... ... cmTSN -> 102 acked 102 acked 103 acked 103 acked 104 acked cmTSN -> 104 acked 105 105 106 acked 106 acked ... ... Here, the data sender successfully advanced the "Peer.Cumulative.TSN" from 102 to 104 locally. C2) Whenever a local advancement of the "Peer.Cumulative.TSN" has been made, the data sender MUST send the data receiver a FORWARD TSN chunk containing the new value of the "Peer.Cumulative.TSN". Note, an endpoint MUST NOT use the forward TSN for any other purposes other than the above circumstance. Note, if a TSN is indicated as missing by a SACK carrying gap reports AND the TSN is earlier than the current "Peer.Cumulative.TSN", the data sender MUST NOT take any action on this TSN, i.e., it MUST ignore this missing report to this TSN. (When this happens, it is an indication that a previous FORWARD TSN from the data sender may be lost in the network.) A4) The data sender MUST NOT fragment a user message sent to an unreliable outbound stream. Instead, it MUST put the entire user message in a single DATA or P-DATA chunk for transmission. Xie, et al [Page 9] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 The ULP primitive "DATA" (defined in Section 10.1 of [RFC2960]) should be expanded to contain an optional unreliable retransmission parameter to assign a "Unrel.Trans.Count" value to each user message to be sent to an unreliable stream. 4.3 Receive Unreliable Data Regardless whether a DATA chunk arrives from a reliable stream or an unreliable stream, the receiver MUST perform the same TSN handling (e.g, duplicate detection, gap detection, SACK generation, cumulative TSN advancement, etc.) as defined in [RFC2960]. However, whenever a FORWARD TSN chunk arrives the data receiver MUST update its cumulative TSN to the value carried in the FORWARD TSN chunk, and MUST stop reporting any un-received TSN before the new cumulative TSN as missing. Whenever an unreliable DATA chunk arrives with the 'U' bit set to '0' (indicating ordered delivery) and is out of order, the receiver must hold the chunk for reordering. However since it is possible that the DATA chunk(s) being waited upon is one that will not be retransmitted by the sender, when a FORWARD TSN chunk arrives, the receiver MUST examine all of its unreliable stream reordering queues, and immediately make available for delivery any chunks that carry a TSN earlier than the new cumulative TSN updated by the FORWARD TSN. 4.4 Usage of the P-DATA chunk. For some applications it is beneficial NOT to discard an SCTP packet due to an error within the User Data portion. For these types of applications this new optional chunk type is being added. All rules defined in [RFC2960] for DATA Chunks MUST be followed for the P-DATA chunk with the following exceptions: E1) The Payload Protocol Identifier (PPI) field is limited to 16 bits. If the ULP presents a PPI that is larger than 16 bits for transmission, the upper 16 bits MUST be discarded. E2) When passing a partial checksum user message to SCTP data sender, the upper layer should indicate how many bytes of the first portion of the user message need checksum protection. The data sender will then add 16 to this amount and put the resulting value into the Checksum Coverage field of the outbound P-DATA chunk. For a valid P-DATA, the value of Checksum Coverage MUST be greater or equal to 16 and MUST NOT be larger than the value of the Length field of the chunk. If the Checksum Coverage value in a received P-DATA is out of this range, the data receiver MUST silently discard the chunk. E3) The Checksum Coverage field defines how much of this P-DATA chunk the Adler-32 checksum is to cover. During Checksum computation the sender and receiver MUST use this field to determine how much of the P-DATA chunk to add to the Checksum of the SCTP packet. After summing the specified amount of data to the checksum, the checksum routine MUST skip to the next chunk (if this is a bundled chunk) and NOT include the rest of the data in the P-DATA chunk in its checksum computation. E4) A sender MUST NOT send a P-DATA chunk unless the 'Partial Checksum support' parameter was seen in the INIT or INIT-ACK from its peer. It is important to note that P-DATA chunk uses the SAME TSN values as the normal DATA Chunk type. The sender and receiver do NOT hold a Xie, et al [Page 10] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 separate TSN sequence spaces for DATA and P-DATA. Instead, the two chunk types use the same TSN sequence space. In effect the P-DATA chunk is treated in all considerations to be a DATA chunk, with all of the normal DATA chunk rules for congestion control effecting this chunk. The only difference in treatment of P-DATA chunk comes during the calculation and verification of the Adler32 checksum. P-DATA chunk MAY be used with either a reliable or un-reliable stream, no restrictions are placed on its usage except those listed above. Use of the P-DATA chunk may be under the control of the SCTP user. Hence, the ULP primitive "DATA" (see section 10.1 of RFC2960) should contain an optional Checksum Coverage value. When a reliable user message subscribing for partial checksum protection is fragmented at the SCTP sender, the sender shall calculate the Checksum Coverage value for each of the resulting P-DATA chunks, based upon the user's original coverage requirement. 5. Other Issues 5.1 Unreliable Data Stream Multiplexing Sometimes, it is desirable to aggregate different real time media streams (e.g., RTP streams) and send them over a single communication connection. And normally, unreliable transport is preferred for these types of media streams. With U-SCTP this is easily achieved by assigning each different media stream to a different unreliable SCTP stream and enabling the SCTP data bundling to perform the multiplexing. The implementation of the data sender MAY use a bundling timer with a time interval adjusted to the timing characteristics of the specific media type in order to achieve the optimal multiplexing efficiency. 5.2 Fault Tolerant Unreliable Data Transfer When the data receiver is multi-homed, unreliable data transfer using U-SCTP will obtain the same fault tolerance benefit as that of the reliable data services across an SCTP association. This is because the data sender still follows the same failure detection rules and still counts the omitted retransmission against the association and the destination transport address to which the unreliable DATA chunk was originally sent. Thus, when failure occurs, the data sender will detect the failure and shift the unreliable data services to an alternate destination address, following the same procedures as defined in Section 8 of [RFC2960] for reliable data transfer. 5.3 Unreliable Data Out-of-order Detection Detecting out-of-order data in an unreliable stream is useful for some applications (e.g. Fiber channel or SCSI over IP). With U-SCTP this becomes possible - the upper layer simply needs to examine the the stream sequence number of the delivered data chunks to detect any missing data or out-of-order data. This detection only works when the DATA chunks are sent in order, i.e. their "U" bit MUST NOT be Xie, et al [Page 11] Internet draft SCTP Unreliable Data Mode Extension January 2001 set. 6. Acknowledgments The authors would like to thank Scott Bradner for his comments. 7. Authors' Addresses Qiaobing Xie Tel: +1-847-632-3028 Motorola, Inc. EMail: qxie1@email.mot.com 1501 W. Shure Drive, #2309 Arlington Heights, IL 60004 USA Randall R. Stewart Tel: +1-815-477-2127 Cisco Systems, Inc. EMail: rrs@cisco.com 8725 West Higgins Road Suite 300 Chicago, Ill 60631 Chip Sharp Tel: +1-919-392-3121 Cisco Systems Inc. EMail:chsharp@cisco.com 7025 Kit Creek Road Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA Ian Rytina Tel: +61-3-9301-6164 Ericsson Australia EMail:ian.rytina@ericsson.com 37/360 Elizabeth Street Melbourne, Victoria 3000 Australia 8. References [RFC2026] Bradner, S., "The Internet Standards Process -- Revision 3", RFC 2026, October 1996. [RFC2119] Bradner, S. "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997. [RFC2960] R. R. Stewart, Q. Xie, K. Morneault, C. Sharp, H. J. Schwarzbauer, T. Taylor, I. Rytina, M. Kalla, L. Zhang, and, V. Paxson, "Stream Control Transmission Protocol," RFC2960, October 2000. This Internet Draft expires in 6 months from January 2001. Xie, et al [Page 12]