Draining the Swamp, A Straw Proposal

Tue Jan 30 21:26:28 UTC 1996

On 29 Jan 96 at 20:56, Sean Shapira wrote:

> Introduction:
> -------------

<snip> 

>   - Depend only on voluntary participation by Internet providers.  

I hate to say this but...

I previously worked for a different place than I do now.  Part of the 
reson I left was the complete "Whats in it for us" attitude there.  I 
have a feeling that that attitude is becoming far too prevelent on 
the internet.  Of late there seems to be a much higher quitient of 
people running providers who are either slothful, not technically 
competent enough to do their job, or both.  None of these people will 
renumber unless they have to.  (I have a feeling renumbering at the 
place that I used to work would take at least 2 weeks, given 1 months 
notice for a handful of Class C's).  No matter what you do, people 
like this are going to be affected by your change and are going to 
resist it unless they are more or less  /forced/ to act.  If they get 
someone with talent to work there they will /forbid/ him from doing 
the right thing if it takes more than 30 minutes of his time or /not/ 
doing it has a real identifiable cost to them.  /These/ are some of 
the people who have these small blocks, and these are the people we 
have to reclaim some space from.  It may be politically bad, but if 
we are going to do some space reclamation, lets do it whole bore.

> 
>   - Gain for participating providers smaller route tables.
> 
>   - Assure that no customer of a provider is unduly harmed by 
>     the provider's participation.
> 
> Can a solution be found that includes all these criteria?  Perhaps
> not, but here's a "straw" proposal nonetheless.
> 
> Proposal:
> ---------
> 
> Participating providers divide a swamp into sections.  For 
> example, four providers could divide 192/8 into 192.0/10, 
> 192.64/10, 192.128/10, and 192.196/10.  
> 
> Each provider continues to announce its customer /24 routes, but in
> addition each announces to the others one of the four /10 routes.
> For the /10 route which it announces, each provider accepts and
> keeps all the /24 routes it hears.  For the other three, it keeps
> only the /10 route and filters out any /24 routes it hears.
> 
> The resulting routing might be inefficient:  provider A might
> deliver packets to provider B that are eventually destined for
> a customer of provider C.  But packets do continue to reach
> their ultimate destinations.
> 
> Providers get smaller route tables, while customers remain 
> blissfully unaware (and thus continue to pay for service ;-).
> 
> Note that four is not a magic number:  any two providers could
> bilaterally enter into an agreement of this type and get reduced
> route table sizes.
> 
> Personal Note:
> --------------
> 
> As an observer on the sidelines of nanog activity, I certainly
> lack the experience of the "older, wiser heads" who operate the
> major providers' backbone networks.  Those with that experience, and
> the knowledge accrued therefrom, may well find gaping holes in this
> straw proposal.  I look forward to their criticism, either in
> traffic on the list, in private email, or in person at the upcoming
> San Diego meeting.
> 
> -- 
> Sean Shapira         sds at jazzie.com         +1 206 443 2028
>  <a href="http://www.jazzie.com/sds/">Sean's Home Page</a> 
>                Serving the Net since 1990.                 

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