[c-nsp] Devil's Advocate - Segment Routing, Why?

Fri Jun 19 08:03:22 UTC 2020

On 19/Jun/20 09:32, Saku Ytti wrote:

> We need to decide if we are discussing a specific market situation or
> fundamentals. Ideally we'd drive the market to what is fundamentally
> most efficient, so that we pay the least amount of the kit that we
> use. If we drive SRv6, we drive cost up, if we drive MPLS, we drive
> cost down.
>
> Even today in many cases you can take a cheap L2 chip, and make it an
> MPLS switch, due to them supporting VLAN swap! Which has no clue of
> IPV6 or IPV4.

We need a new toy.

MPLS has been around far too long, and if you post web site content
still talking about it or show up at conferences still talking about it,
you fear that you can't sell more boxes and line cards on the back of
"just" broadening carriage pipes.

So we need to invent a new toy around which we can wrap a story about
"adding value to your network" to "drive new business" and "reduce
operating costs", to entice money to leave wallets, when all that's
really still happening is the selling of more boxes and line cards, so
that we can continue to broaden carriage pipes.

There are very few things that have been designed well from scratch, and
stand the test of time regardless of how much wind is thrown at them.
MPLS is one of those things, IMHO. Nearly 20 years to the day since
inception, and I still can't find another packet forwarding technology
that remains as relevant and versatile as it is simple.

Mark.