Stack Selection

---

Although in most cases, selecting a new TCP/IP stack is not an option, for many embedded projects, the selection of a TCP/IP stack is a common effort. When selecting a new TCP/IP stack, there are a number of characteristics that must be satisfied for support of high performance.

One of the most important aspects of a high-performance TCP/IP stack is RFC-1323, or “Support for High Performance Extensions.” This RFC defines support for large windows that are critical for high-bandwidth, long-haul networks. Another important RFC is RFC 2018, or “Selective Acknowledgment.” This option is also critical for high performance networking in that it permits support for acknowledging out-of-sequence data. Finally, a standard RFC that should be part of any commercial TCP/IP stack is RFC 2001, “TCP Slow Start, Congestion Avoidance, Fast Retransmit.” These options were important for performance, but have undergone recent updates to increase their performance for very high bandwidth links (such as 10-Gigabit links).

---