Subject: Re: Possible IAB workshop on routing and addressing participants?

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 09:17:24 -0400 (EDT)

> From: David Meyer <[email-masked]>

    > The IAB is considering holding a routing and addressing workshop

I've been musing about this for a while, and I have some comments. (I'd
also be interested in what people think of my musings...)

The chief one I have is that I feel that in some sense you've all got the cart
before the horse; the focus in the thing you sent out seems to be on *what*
we're going to deploy, and not on *how* we're going to deploy it - and the
latter frankly seems, to me, by far the harder problem.

(Indeed, we have a major worked example that it's far easier to design a whole
new protocol, than get it deployed and adopted. But other than taking a
lesson, let's avoid that rat-hole. We also have worked examples that it's not
that hard to design technically viable new routing/addressing architectures;
indeed, I would take position that what a new routing/addressing architecture
should look like is a "done deal" - no doubt to nobody's surprise! :-)

It's precisely because a number of us have been down that "design a new
routing/addressing architecture" path that I focus on "how" rather than
"what"; the past experience is that it's basically easy to work out the
design (including a viable interoperability/deployment path, that's not what
I'm talking about), far eaiser than it is to get it adopted.

So I think the biggest problem, and the one any workshop should focus on, is
identifying a viable path to get something deployed. (I'm assuming here that
the desired technical end is *not* merely a few minor tweaks to the existing
system - the IETF WG process would be adequate for that.) Let me try and make
this clearer by giving some brief thoughts on the matter.

I think the one essential is to get many (most?) of the major ISP's on board.
I don't think there's a viable deployment path which starts with deployment in
customer sites; maybe I'm wrong, and maybe there is, and if so that's
something we could discuss. But let's assume for the moment we need the ISP's
- and also that once it's deployed there, it will naturally filter down to the
rest of the network. So you have to sit down with the ISP's and get some
agreement from them on what a new system should do (since nobody's going to
buy a pig in a poke, and sign up for whatever you produce, no matter what it
is). How is that going to happen? Will they be able to come to a consensus?
How can you make sure they are really signed up to do it, and not just merely
giving lip service?

Then you get to the issue of "how do you protect the interests of the other
network stakeholders, especially the users". The ISP's are gonna want to dial
things to the end that makes their life easiest, and who cares if life's tough
for everyone else. How do we control that?

Then there's getting it implemented, by all the major router vendors. If you
have many ISP's signed up, maybe this solves itself - if the ISP's are willing
to prefer boxes that have the new thing in it, and put their money where their
mouths are, then the vendors will do it out of self-preservation.  But maybe
we need something more formal - some group of entities might have to cough up
money to fund an "open-source" implementation which the vendors can integrate,
perhaps. Anway, that's another issue (although less critical than the others).

I think you all probably get the drift by now. Without a viable plan to get it
adopted, a new design is IMO a waste of time - or a PhD project for some grad
student who needs a topic.

I have some comments on the specific contents of the proposed call, but since
this is already long I'll send this off, and follow along with them later.

	Noel

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---

From: "Tony Li" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 08:33:08 -0700

Noel,

I think that getting the ISPs signed up is relatively easy.  I believe
that most of them see the writing on the wall with regard to the
remaining lifetime of v4 and would welcome an alternative to v6.

Tony

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Noel Chiappa [mailto:[email-masked]] 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2006 6:17 AM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: Possible IAB workshop on routing and addressing 
> participants?
>

---

From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 19:33:10 +0200

> remaining lifetime of v4 and would welcome an alternative to v6.

It took us about a decade to get to this point with IPv6. Is it  
reasonable to assume that we could do a similar project significantly  
faster? We are scheduled to run out of IPv4 address space within 7 to  
9 years or so.

Getting ISPs to do _anything_ isn't easy, as anyone who has ever  
called an ISP support number can attest to. I see two things that can  
get a new routing paradigm or protocol adopted: if it can run on  
existing routers where the existing way of doing things would require  
investing in new hardware, and good security. But only if the new  
thing can do IPv4 and IPv6 more or less as it exists today, I don't  
think radically new addressing will fly with operators any time soon.

---

From: Geoff Huston <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2006 06:43:49 +1000

>remaining lifetime of v4 and would welcome an alternative to v6.

I'd be wary of such generalizations. Such prescient ISPs are not exactly 
commonplace, and in various parts of the world the ISPs appear to in future 
denial and are still deploying mass-market IPv4-based products that have no 
escape clause whatsoever when the current technology components are no 
longer available at today's price points. You are indeed fortunate to be in 
a locale where you appear to have such well-informed ISPs.

I personally think getting the ISP's to sign up to technology change is 
going to be challenging. One of the more illustrative examples of just how 
challenging is the 4-byte ASN transition plan, where the essence of the 
transition is to tunnel and translate simultaneously across the currently 
deployed BGP base. The assumption in that plan is that the existing base 
will change _nothing_ in their deployed environments any time soon (or even 
any time later!).

regards,

    Geoff