NANOG/IEPG/ISOC's current role

Thu Apr 4 16:16:42 UTC 1996

At 11:04 AM 4/4/96, Tim Bass (PIER) wrote:
>Howard states:
>
>[ ... ]
>
>> IMHO, I don't think you can guarantee that almost anything will stay
>> routable, certainly anything less than an /18.  Bluntly, there's no good
>> way to guarantee routable prefixes.
>
>Yes, there is a good way to GUARANTEE routable prefixes.  Intermediate
>system address translation which maps to "virtual renumbering"....

In the specific case, this might take a new translator box that is not
budgeted.  Yes, I know renumbering costs staff time, but many organizations
find it much easier to justify staff time than capital expenses.

There's already a commitment to renumber here.  Tim, my major point was
that the enterprise here should, when renumbering, install infrastructure
that makes possible future renumbering easier.  Are you opposed to this?
DHCP and such exist today, but I'm not sure I would say fully functional
and tested address translators do.  They may very well be in the near term.

I'll agree that address translation will work in some, but not all
situations.   The problems are less in pure routing than in network
management, DNS (especially reverse mapping), etc.
>
>The answer my friend.... is blowing in the wind... in the technical
>implementation, not "human attitude re-engineering".....

I don't think we are in philosophical disagreement, but what the technical
implementation should or can be.
>
>The attitude, .... "bluntly, there's no good way for man to fly...."
>is not unique to written history.... it is alive and well in the
>Internet today ;-)

There is no good way for man to fly.
There is an excellent way for man to be flown in airplanes.
There isn't always a need to fly.  Requirements analysis can fix things at
the end system, with application-dependent solutions ranging from
videoconferencing to ICBMs.