ignore the word "radical"

Thu Feb 16 19:30:23 UTC 2006

Let's look at this a little more carefully.

Pretend for a moment that you operate a network "U".  Pretend that 
someone else operates a network "E".  Pretend that you share a 
downstream customer "C".  So far, so good.

"C" has several different locations, none of which are directly 
interconnected.  They advertise their aggregate netblock, which makes 
its way to the global table.  They also advertise longer prefixes for 
you to deliver traffic to the specific location; these are tagged 
NO_REDISTRIBUTE.

This does not increase the size of the global table.  This does not 
require proactive registration of an ASN for every potential customer, 
nor for every other transit provider in the world.  It does not require 
a different ASN for each location "C" has.  It does not effect any other 
number of wacky things that have been suggested.

It does require peering between "U" and "E", or de-aggregated prefixes 
to be leaked between the two.  (Ask your transit provider; you're paying 
them for this service, so it makes them money.)

Now say that one person from each location sends in a monthly check for 
"their" portion of the service.  Panic!  Horror!  Routing no longer 
works the same way!

Yes, aggregation means less flexibility.  One therefore aggregates likes 
together.  (Thanks David for the addressing/topology quote.)  Some of 
you might even do this with your global announcements.

Must "C" renumber when changing providers?  Yes.  Sounds familiar.

I'm pointing out a way to give consumers dual-homing _today_, using 
installed technology.[*]  I'm not claiming that it answers the question 
of portable /32s.  I'm not saying that they'll be able to prepend 
AS_PATHs arbitrarily, send BGP communities, etc. -- and I'd even go so 
far as to claim they typically don't want to.

[*] Excepting CPE equipment, which would need a simple BGP speaker.

Eddy
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