Verio Peering Question

Tue Oct 2 22:33:54 UTC 2001

Also sprach Sean M. Doran
>So you call up noc at foobar.net and offer them $x to listen to and
>propagate your announcement, and perhaps to act as your agent in
>transactions with other networks around the world.   

Oh, and that scales really well.</sarcasm>

Let's frame a few things first.

While IP address depletion is still an issue, its not the major issue at
the current time.  CIDR is a pretty decent "fix" for that currently, and
functions, regardless of how the filtering issue is decided.  So, with
that tossed to the side for the moment, let's look at the other major
issue.

Routing table size.  I think we're all in agreement that this is the
critical current problem that filtering is supposed to fix.

Ultimately, the problem here is the RIR policies.

IgLou has 6 prefixes that we announce (I know, small time in the overall
scheme of things, but bear with me here).  I aggregate as much as
possible given the 6 prefixes that I have been allocated.

IgLou was just allocated our 6th prefix within the past year or so.  No
provisions were made for us to be able to keep the number of
advertisements even the same, let alone lower that.  (I know, 6 prefixes
isn't a huge deal in the overall scheme of routing table size...I'm
talking about conceptually here)

I would think it is reasonable, and I believe there has even been
verbiage in some of the RIR policy documents at times that new
allocations be done in manners to minimize the number of announcements.

While I'm not really keen on renumbering equipment on my network, I'm
perfectly willing to do so for "the good of the Internet".

I think it would be a good idea for RIR's to have renumbering out of
un-aggregateable space as a condition on getting more IP space.  Set a
time limit of a year or two, maybe dependant on the size of the block.

It would not be terribly difficult for IgLou to get down to 2
announcements from the 6 we currently have, and its conceivable that we
could get down to a single one.

Maybe this should happen over time...each time you get a new block, you
turn in 2.  It doesn't matter the length of the prefix you turn in,
since the critical issue isn't the number of IP addresses in use, but
rather the number of entries in the routing table.

I could *EASILY* renumber out of one of the prefixes that I have (a
/24), in a heartbeat, but I have absolutely no incentive to do
so...indeed, I have something of a disincentive since that's a loss of
available IP space for me, with no benefit.

Keep in mind that the number of available IP addresses isn't a
significant issue as CIDR is still functional in this sort of
environment, so the current RIR policies about utilization of space
could still be used with only some minor tweaks.  (Obviously, there's no
point in giving IgLou a /20 if one of the blocks that I would be turning
in would be a /20).

This addresses the heart of the current problem, the number of
un-aggregateable prefixes, without going back to the original problem
from back in the day of depletion of IP address space.
-- 
Jeff McAdams                            Email: jeffm at iglou.com
Head Network Administrator              Voice: (502) 966-3848
IgLou Internet Services                        (800) 436-4456