multi-homing fixes

Thu Aug 23 22:32:52 UTC 2001

On Thu, Aug 23, 2001 at 03:23:24PM -0700, Roeland Meyer wrote:
> At $99US for 512MB of PC133 RAM (the point is, RAM is disgustingly cheap and
> getting cheaper), more RAM in the routers is a quick answer. Router clusters

You almost make some good arguments.  I pick up on this one for
two reasons:

1) You clearly haven't priced Cisco RAM lately. :-)

2) You've missed the issue completely.  You dance around ISP's
   providing more reliable service (eg, by adding RAM to their
   routers), and then dismiss that in the face of poor service and
   cheap prices people will buy multiple links.

Much like your $99 RAM argument, customers today can get two or
three T1's for the same price as one just a year ago.  More bandwidth,
more reliability, often less cost.  Who would say no?

Clearly ISP's should offer better service, but at the current
bandwidth prices even with an ISP that took every precaution I, as
a customer, would always buy from two people.  The price really is
that cheap.  Even if ISP's (from a backbone perspective) delivered
real 100% uptime, many people would buy two circuits (to different
CO's) to avoid localized fiber / cable cuts.

Multi-homing is here to stay, in a big way.  It will only become
more popular, no matter how good the ISP's become, for a number of
reasons.  Any future protocol or policy discussions should take
this as a given.

-- 
Leo Bicknell - bicknell at ufp.org
Systems Engineer - Internetworking Engineer - CCIE 3440
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