Customer view vs. operator view was:( h-root-servers.net)

Mon Oct 24 14:06:35 UTC 2005

> > I know of one host here in germany who can see h.root-servers.net.
> > That host is living in a KPN data centre directly connected to 
Amterdam
> > IX.
> 
> Your own traceroute clearly shows that your host is not directly
> connected to the AMS-IX. Nor does the KPN datacenter it resides in. The
> AMS-IX has 4 datacenters where members can place equipment which can be
> directly connected to the AMS-IX:
> 
> - GlobalSwitch;
> - Sara;
> - Nikhef;
> - Telecity2, Kuiperbergerweg;
> 
> Every statement otherwise is bogus, nonsense, crap or whatever term you
> prefer to use for this.

This is a good example of a useless argument caused when one
person is speaking from a customer viewpoint and one customer
is speaking from an operator viewpoint.

Assume that there is an ISP X with a data center in Germany
and a colocated rack at Nikhef. They peer directly with many
other providers through AMS-IX from their Nikhef location.
Customer Q comes along and places a server in their data centre 
in Germany because he needs to serve his users both in Germany and
in his chain of hotels throughout Holland. His network people assure
him that the server is connected directly to AMS-IX because that
is what their traceroutes say.

Of course, we know better. We know that the server is connected
directly to ISP X and indirectly to AMS-IX because we are
used to being particular about which operator owns each
hop. But the customer Q doesn't see the hops in network X. 
To him, they are invisible because they are his HOME network.
Customers don't see themselves as network operators and therefore
they often think of their ISP's network as their own.

So who is right? Peter? Sabri? Both?
My opionion is that neither of them is right because they
both failed to understand what the real problem is and
they both failed to take the correct steps to solve the
problem. As it happens, this was a very, very basic
network issue which does not need to be discussed on
NANOG at all.

--Michael Dillon