"2M today, 10M with no change in technology"? An informal survey.

Sat Aug 25 23:30:26 UTC 2007

Hi,

In another mailing list, someone has asserted that "noone believes  
router vendors who say [they can support 2M routes today and 10M with  
no change in technology]".  Or perhaps more accurately, the router  
vendors claiming this are being a bit disingenuous in that while it  
is possible routers can handle this many static routes, they'll  
quickly fall down if they were subjected to real world dynamic  
conditions ISPs would see if you extrapolate routing flux in today's  
tables up to (say) 2M routes.

My questions:

Do you believe router vendors who state they today have "capacities  
on the order of 2 million ipv4 routes and they have no reason to  
expect that they couldn't deliver 10 million route FIB products in a  
few years given sufficient demand."?

If you do not (or you believe the router vendors are being  
disingenuous) and routing system growth continues:

- where do you believe existing routing technology will fall down?

- what steps will you take/are you taking to limit your vulnerability?

Feel free to respond privately if you don't feel comfortable  
discussing this in a public forum.  I promise to hold any responses  
confidential, publishing only a summary of responses.

Thanks,
-drc