In the DCMI V1.5 specification, the non-random back-off delay is specified as the default for DHCP discovery. Why was non-random selected as the default instead of random? Random back-off delays on message retries seems like the better option for a DHCP server with many DHCP client as it would provide separation in the retry requests coming from the clients after a time-out.
The 840.00 release of the IBM Power systems is not in compliance with this one point of the DCMI V1.5. I need to make a recommendation to the IBM Power team if a change should be made to move into compliance. For this, I need to understand from the architect why the default was selected as "non-random" instead of staying with "random" which is the existing implementation in the DHCP clients.for RFC 2131`:
"DHCP clients are responsible for all message retransmission. The
client MUST adopt a retransmission strategy that incorporates a
randomized exponential backoff algorithm to determine the delay
between retransmissions."
https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2131.txt
Message was edited by: Mike Landry