<quote> Multihoming is popular because the cost of transmission circuits is plummeting, making it less expensive to buy Internet access services from two or more ISPs. At the same time, companies are more concerned about the reliability of their networks and less willing to trust one service provider. </quote> This gal only has it half right. It isn't the reduced cost of circuits, it's it's the uncertainty that that circuit's provider will still be in business next month, or that a change in that provider's business plans, or M&A activity, will make them abandon that circuit altogether. This coupled with 2+ month provisioning schedules. A dropped circuit will result in a 2+ month business outage. A 2 week business outage will put most companies out of business for good. How many, of Northpoint's 100K customers survived Northpoint's business failure? How many, of those that did, were multi-homed? How many of them are multi-homed now? <quote> "Half of the companies that are multihomed should have gotten better service from their providers," says Patrik Faltstrom, a Cisco engineer and co-chair of the IETF's Applications Area. "ISPs haven't done a good enough job explaining to their customers that they don't need to multihome." </quote> Is Patrik Faltstrom still an IETF co-chair? Is he still helping the [failing] credibility of the IETF? Maybe, that's why? How can any ISP, or anyone else, credibly guarantee that they'll still be in business next year? Or, that they wont sell out to the very rich bad guys? Or, that circuit provisioning will drop to under 5 calendar days? Because, that is the *only* way you will convince business customers that they don't need to multi-home. At $99US for 512MB of PC133 RAM (the point is, RAM is disgustingly cheap and getting cheaper), more RAM in the routers is a quick answer. Router clusters are another answer, and faster CPUs are yet another. All of the above, should get us by until we get a better router architecture. If the IETF is being at all effective, that should start now and finish sometime next year, so that we can start the 5-year technology roll-out cycle. The next time that PF goes out in public, he should either have his lips perma-bonded together, or have the lower part of his face covered in duct tape. Maybe then, he can resist the urge to chew on his feet. |> -----Original Message----- |> From: Irwin Lazar [mailto:ILazar@tbg.com] |> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 2:35 PM |> To: 'nanog@merit.edu' |> Subject: multi-homing fixes |> |> |> |> A while back there was an article in Network World on |> problems due to the |> rise of multihoming: |> http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2001/0402routing.html which was |> discussed in |> great length in this forum. |> |> Has the IETF created a working group to deal with a |> long-term fix for this |> issue, and if so, is there a URL for its activities?