Subject: Re: one size doesn' fit all (was Re: other requirement? (was Re: [RAM] Traffic Engineering

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 18:35:46 -0500 (EST)

> From: Tony Li <[email-masked]>

    > Hmmm... well, that's problematic. .. if endpoints don't have single
    > addresses, and they don't have multiple addresses, the only logical
    > alternative is that they don't have ANY address. That implies that we
    > simply turn off the Internet

This whole multi-homing discussion reminds me incredibly strongly of the
CIDR-Deployment discussion.

Everyone walks up and say "your solution sucks, because it means I have to do
X, which is painful and contrary to my inherent rights, and I refuse to do
it". So you explain to them why the choice is X or nothing, and eventually
they swallow hard and bite down on X.  Then the next person comes up, and the
process repeats. Eventually people get tired of banging their heads on the
wall, but it takes quite a while.

So my prediction is that eventually people will accept that to have widespread
multi-homing, they will have to accept that entities have to have multiple
routing-names. Whether it will take even longer, because the Internet
community is now even bigger, well that's a good question.

How exactly, in technical terms, the multiple routing-names will happen (it
may be done through border devices, so that individual hosts don't have to
get involved, or perhaps we'll automate it somehow, as we do now with TCP
retransmission timeouts, which are so complex we keep people away from them)
remains to be seen. GSE may look a lot better to people now that they've seen
SHIM6.

And hey, if all else fails, there's always NAT.

	Noel

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---

From: Roland Dobbins <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 31 Dec 2006 16:42:53 -0800

> CIDR-Deployment discussion.

The differences between then and now are a) that the set of problems  
which needed to be solved was better-understood by a large percentage  
of the relevant parties, b) there were far fewer relevant parties at  
that time than there are today, c) not as much blood, treasure, and  
sweat (in absolute terms) was at stake then as there is today, d)  
we've far less of an excuse to be in this boat at the end of 2006  
than we did in 1992-1993 and e) we had time then to do a mid-course  
correction in the event that CIDR hadn't worked out, and f) CIDR was  
a pretty good and somewhat elegant solution to the set of problems  
which needed to be solved.

The biggest similarities between then and now are a) that we've  
waited far too long to come up with a feasible solution which takes  
into account all the relevant considerations, b) that folks are yet  
again waking up to the fact that there is in fact a serious problem  
at the eleventh hour, and c) that an utterly unworkable proposal  
(then, the attempted CLNP putsch at the 1992 Kobe IAB meeting and the  
resultant 'palace revolt' at the 1992 Cambridge IETF meeting; now,  
SHIM6) has served a useful purpose in terms of ensuring that all the  
major aspects of the problem are finally being taken into  
consideration and that a larger proportion of the relevant  
stakeholders are finally taking an active interest in developing a  
solution.

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Roland Dobbins <[email-masked]> // 408.527.6376 voice

		All battles are perpetual.

     		   -- Milton Friedman