small site multi-homing (related to: Small guys with BGP issues)

Tue Nov 3 19:30:43 UTC 2009

Clue Store wrote:
> I think you're missing my point and did not read my post completely.
>  
> First off, BGP was never mentioned in my post.

Oops, you are correct.  Somebody else said "BGP."  You spoke of the
existing table, and so I had BGP in my mind, and I muddled the two
together.  Mea culpa.

> If I accept a /29 for the minority and pass that prefix along to the
> next provider, I have to accept it for the majority and pass them
> along to the next provider. And these 500 company's you speak about,
> the other blocks given back to <insert RIR or LIR here> would be
> hashed back out which WOULD still increase prefixes in the global
> table as they want to advertise their /29's. I agree that it would
> save v4 space right now for those who wouldn't announce the remainder
> /29's, but you're thinking short term as we all know that v4 space has
> out-welcomed it's stay (thank you NAT). Yes, it will run paraellel for
> 3, 5, maybe 7 years until enough folks get a clue and make the switch
> to v6, but in the end, v4 will go away.

That assumes that there isn't a solution that requires constant presence
in the global table, instead of a
tell-me-about-this-prefix-when-I-need-it-and-not-before method.  I admit
that there hasn't been a good solution to the problem yet, but that
doesn't mean there isn't one.  I'm not sure it has been seriously
researched in recent years.

> Having all that said, I am not knocking the 'dreamers' out there one
> bit. I encourage new ideas to help solve issues that we've discussed
> in this very thread. But at this point, there's more dreaming than
> solutions and revenue. And de-aggreation is one of the biggest
> problems with global routing today. Add v6 and the possibility of
> /48's being permitted into the global table, and most folks with a
> router from any vendor today couldn't support a full global table.

No, but providers having to upgrade software or hardware to support the
needs of the network in 3, 5, or 7 years isn't anything new, and neither
is router vendors coming up with incremental software or hardware
upgrades to make boxes do what they can't do now.

-Dave