IXP

Mon Apr 20 22:57:01 UTC 2009

* deepak at ai.net (Deepak Jain) [Mon 20 Apr 2009, 23:25 CEST]:
>So here is an idea that I hope someone shoots down.
>
>We've been talking about pseudo-wires, and the high level of expertise a 
>shared-fabric IXP needs to diagnose weird switch oddities, etc.
[..]
>What if everyone who participated at an IXP brought their own switch. 
>For argument's sake, a Nexus 5xxx. It has 20+ ports of L2, wire speed 
>10G.

You didn't Cc: randy bush and I assume he's been delete-threading this 
so I'll say it instead: I encourage all my competitors to try this.

You do realise, I hope, that the ability to diagnose weird switch 
oddities decreases pretty radically when the switch is outside one's 
administrative control, right?

Ethernet has no administrative boundaries that can be delineated. 
Spanning one broadcast domain across multiple operators is therefore 
a recipe for disaster.  Attempts to limit this will fail as there is no 
enforcement possible in such a cooperative environment except yelling 
after the fact and frantic mailing during meltdowns.  I don't think I 
need to spell out how quick hacks will severely restrict scalability.

Cheap, fast, secure.  It is obvious which two Ethernet chose.

	-- Niels.

-- 
"We humans get marks for consistency. We always opt for
  civilization after exhausting the alternatives."
			-- Carl Guderian