UUNET Press Release on Peering

Mon May 12 22:07:33 UTC 1997

>Strikes me that the terms "diversely routed" and "geographically diverse" 
>can be interpretted wildly.

You catch on quick.  Who gets to do the audit?  Other than the 'public'
interface between the providers, I don't think it is wise, or appropriate
to get into the internal design or business plans of competitors.  You
really have to treat the rest of it as a black box.  It hard enough to
predict what technology I'll need to deploy in my network without having
by hands tied by an agreement with a competitor.  Thou shall use only
dedicated, fully-meshed, terrasterial clear-channel lines sounds great
until I discover the best way I can reach timbuktoo is over a ATM
satellite link.

DRA doesn't have large Web farms, but people build public libaries in
the darndest places.  I'm always amused by providers that have peering
requirements their own networks, or existing 'peers' don't meet.

>For most networks, I don't see a real problem dropping a couple extra 
>pairs of DS3s (assuming they were only at two NAPs to begin with). 

There is a partition problem.  Assume there are six points, and each
provider chooses four.  Provider 1 could choose 1, 2, 3, 4.  Provider 2
could choose 3, 4, 5, 6.  Although each provider is at four points,
they only share two in common (3, 4).  Which provider alters their business
plans to connect to eight places just so they have four common exchange
points?

>If UUNet requires a DS3 interconnect at LINX, MaeWest, MaeEast and say 
>(for giggles) Australia -- AND a diversely routed DS3 backbone in the 
>U.S. that takes on an entirely different meaning than the above. 

Don't giggle, DRA has an office in Melbourne.  We don't have enough
traffic to justify multiple DS3/E3's to Melbourne, but looking at UUNET's
international map, neither do they.  Every provider has their own
strengths and weaknesses, they are never exactly equal.  Getting into
the internal network design of your competitor is just asking for trouble.
PSI and Sprint engineers used to battle over who had the better backbone
design.  Neither ever convinced the other they were right.

I don't think its a good idea to require every backbone follow the exact
same design.  We may have different 'major' routes than other providers,
and choose to deploy our 'big' links differently.  That's one of the
strengths of the Internet, not a weakness.   My design methodolgy may
be good, or it may be bad; but the design diversity between providers
hopefully means a "group think" mistake won't kill everyone.
-- 
Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO
  Affiliation given for identification not representation