A New Era in Networking: Insights from use of the Experimental Linux Kernel QUIC Driver with SMB3.1.1

Great progress has been made in the development of the new experimental Linux kernel driver for QUIC. QUIC avoids many of the performance problems that TCP/IP has (and also adds encryption support). While QUIC is already supported by multiple non-Linux SMB3.1.1 clients and servers, Linux has until recently lacked a kernel driver for this networking protocol. This presentation will describe the current state of testing and development of the new kernel QUIC driver with SMB3.1.1 mounts on Linux, and what we have observed as we tested the new driver. As the kernel QUIC driver improves, its use could expand broadly for Linux storage workloads. For SMB3.1.1 use of QUIC has an additional advantage of avoiding the "port 445" problem that some SMB3.1.1 users experience when they can't access remote servers due to port blockage. More importantly QUIC improves performance for many network use cases, reducing latency, improving congestion control and better multiplexing.