FAST

FAST is an enhanced congestion control algorithm for TCP, which utilizes delay variations as congestion indications, not just packet loss. It was developed at Caltech under a relatively restrictive license. FAST stands for Fast AQM Scalable TCP. The aggressive marketing of FAST as a speed-up technique was sometimes criticized.

After the conclusion of the FAST project, the authors went on to found FastSoft, a startup company whose first product is a 1U appliance that acts as a "transparent" proxy to accelerate transiting TCP sessions. According to an article, FastSoft's FastTCP product is now used by Limelight networks, a large Content Delivery Network (CDN) to speed up internal data transport.

References

• FAST Web Site
• FAST TCP: motivation, architecture, algorithms, performance, D. Wei, C. Jin, S. Low, S. Hegde, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (TON) Vol. 14, Issue 6 (December 2006)

-- SimonLeinen - 27 Oct 2006 - 18 Nov 2008