And…
Management makes the backbone function, but management information may arrive late or be incorrect.
- So nodes must defend themselves locally against protocol dysfunction. A high degree of autonomy is vital.
The round-trip time for packet N could be orders of magnitude larger than the round-trip time for packet N-1, e.g., at end of tracking pass.
- So retransmission timeout intervals must be computed from operational data, not projected from round-trip history.