QUICker connection establishment with out-of-band validation tokens
This work addresses performance improvements for QUIC protocol users, but it is incremental as it builds on existing address validation mechanisms.
The paper tackles the problem of reducing connection establishment latency in QUIC by introducing an out-of-band validation token to save one round-trip time during the initial handshake, achieving up to 50% delay reduction and saving 363.6ms for average website retrieval.
QUIC is a secure transport protocol that improves the performance of HTTPS. An initial QUIC handshake that enforces a strict validation of the client's source address requires two round-trips. In this work, we extend QUIC's address validation mechanism by an out-of-band validation token to save one round-trip time during the initial handshake. The proposed token allows sharing an address validation between the QUIC server and trusted entities issuing these tokens. This saves a round-trip time for the address validation. Furthermore, we propose distribution mechanisms for these tokens using DNS resolvers and QUIC connections to other hostnames. Our proposal can save up to 50% of the delay overhead of an initial QUIC handshake. Furthermore, our analytical results indicate that 363.6ms in total can be saved for all connections required to retrieve an average website, if a round-trip time of 90ms is assumed.