Bolt - Sub-RTT Congestion Control for Ultra-Low Latency

Explore a cutting-edge approach to congestion control in data center networks through this conference talk from NSDI '23. Dive into the design and implementation of Bolt, a novel system that pushes congestion control to its theoretical limits by leveraging programmable data planes. Learn about the challenges posed by increasing line rates and larger Bandwidth Delay Products (BDPs) in modern data centers. Discover how Bolt addresses these issues through three core ideas: Sub-RTT Control (SRC), Proactive Ramp-Up (PRU), and Supply Matching (SM). Examine the experimental results demonstrating Bolt's significant improvements in latency reduction and flow completion time compared to existing solutions like Swift and HPCC. Gain insights into the future of ultra-low latency networking and its potential impact on applications such as NVMe and distributed machine learning.