June 1996 - Test - lists.nanog.org

My InfoWorld Column About NANOG
by bob_metcalfe＠infoworld.com 25 Jun '96

25 Jun '96

Dear NANOG List, Thanks for your critiques of my NANOG meeting critique column in InfoWorld. Below is a copy of a draft (before editing) of the offending column, just in case some of you have been reading only one another's critiques instead of the column itself. Of course I stand by it. Some of you guys/gals are very good at ad hominem attacks. Flaming is alive and well on the Internet. Tisk tisk. But then I asked for it. Anyway, the attention is flattering. Thank you. A few of you missed one point at least. I am NOT suggesting that any of YOU start wearing suits, especially if you find them uncomfortable, or that they make a statement you are not willing to make -- none of that, no -- good engineers are too valuable to overdress. I am suggesting that more of the kind of people who ALREADY wear suits should start paying attention to the important work NANOG is attempting and start attending your meetings so they can pitch in on the non-engineering aspects of operating the Internet. Is that clearer now? By the way, there are reports from two days ago that 400,000 people lost their Internet access for 13 hours. Sounds like an outage approaching "collapse." Was that just a Netcom thing that NANOG has no interest in? Netcom is not talking very much about what happened. Any clues/facts out there? Were any NAPs involved? /Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld ---------------------- InfoWorld / From the Ether / Bob Metcalfe NANOG Meeting Column DRAFT TWO The North American Network Operations Group (NANOG) remains our best bet for managing through the Internet's coming collapses. Problem is, like the Internet, NANOG itself is struggling to scale up. I've just been among the 350 mostly engineers attending NANOG's May meeting at George Washington University. It's clear now, even if they hate the idea, that if NANOG is to lead us toward an industrial-strength Internet, then it must now urgently attract the active participation of many more men and women who routinely wear suits. Here, on April Fool's Day, I nominated NANOG as that organization best positioned to lift the Internet out of its current, disfunctional operations anarchy. I then incorrectly identified NANOG as part of the Internet Society's Internet Engineering and Planning Group (IEPG), a seemingly defunct sister of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Turns out I was wrong about what I'd read on the Web at http://info.isoc.org:80/adopsec. For the next two weeks postings on NANOG's message archive flamed me for not knowing that NANOG is moderated by the Merit Network at the University of Michigan (http://www.merit.edu) NANOG, I was told, has nothing to do with the Internet Society. And further, the Internet Society has nothing to do anymore with the IETF. Checking with a pal at the Society, I was told that IETF has been arguing about disassociating from the Internet Society, and, oh by the way, Merit is "irrelevant." Yes, I found pettiness and bureaucratic infighting among the groups I had hoped would be pulling the Internet together. I stand corrected, but not reassured. Back at NANOG, I was surrounded by people whose life is about "running code." I twiddled as these mostly engineers, unaccustomed as they are to public speaking, stood up one by one in front of 350 people without having ever tried their slides on GWU's projection system. We all waited while Windows booted. If you have running code, it seems, you don't have to respect your audience by checking your slides at least once in advance. Or by wearing a suit. NANOG's opening presentations on "The State of the Internet" were given by the four Network Access Points (NAPs). Pacific Bell (http://www.PacBell.COM/Products/NAP) Sprint (http://www.sprintlink.net/SPLK/HB21.html) Ameritech (http://www.ameritech.com/products/data/nap) and MFS Datanet (http://www.mfsdatanet.com/) each showed how very connected they are to various of the big Internet Service Providers (ISPs). They are installing new equipment to meet ramping demand, are operating well below capacity, and are not losing even a single Internet packet ever, they said. Then came the three large Network Service Providers (NSPs). Sprint, ANS (http://www.ans.net) and MCI (http://www.mci.com/resources) each showed, after some Macintosh booting, that they are installing new equipment to meet ramping demand, are operating well below capacity, and are not losing even a single Internet packet ever, they said. Then the fit hit the shan. Various earnest young speakers from Merit stood up one by one to report "alarming" statistics from the Internet -- rapidly increasing packet loss rates and routing instabilities (http://nic.merit.edu/routing.arbiter/RA/statistics) They asked the NAPs and NSPs, "Where are so many packets being lost?" "Somewhere else," came the denial. Then followed an afternoon and another morning of pleadings. For standards on traffic measurements. For regular outage reporting. For cooperation on gathering topological information to use in Internet operations management. For streamlining multilateral "peering agreements" among ISPs. For systematic use of an Internet Routing Registry. And, from an actual Internet user, pleadings for cooperation on end-to-end service measurements. Sadly, there was nobody at NANOG with the organizational sophistication to grab hold of these pleadings and accelerate them toward action. So, hey, I've got an idea, let's ask the business executives to whom current attendees of NANOG report to buy some T-shirts and take over. The Internet needs more than running code. Now, what would happen if some of NANOG's big university, NAP, and NSP regulars showed up among the many small commercial ISPs expected August 8-10 at ONE ISPCON in San Francisco? I'll be summarizing there. See www.boardwatch.com or call 800-933-6038. END ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________ Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe Executive Correspondent, InfoWorld and VP Technology, International Data Group Internet Messages: bob_metcalfe(a)infoworld.com Voice Messages: 617-534-1215 Conference Chairman for ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing San Jose Convention Center March 1-5, 1997 ______________________________________________ ______________________________________________

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Re: Netcom Outage (Was: My InfoWorld Column About NANOG)
by Dick St.Peters 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

> Was this a foreshock of the coming Metcalfean Big One I'm having trouble perceiving what the big deal is in all this. It's not like this sort of thing hasn't happened before. An event those who were present and sentient in late 1965 may remember was when a smallish failure on the power grid in southeastern Canada caused a cascading collapse that took out power throughout the northeastern US. Those who, like me, can remember their telephone number being extended from 3 digits to 4 will find nothing new in dire predictions of the large scale collapse of a communications network. It wasn't just predicted, it happened - repeatedly. The telephone network did not sprout from scratch as a multiply-redundant mesh with backup everything. It grew into one, with plenty of 'events' along the way to propel that process forward. These events happen, and they will happen on the Internet. They are not apocalypses; life goes on, perhaps with some minor readjustments in incomes. The Internet can be put back together when it breaks. Certainly on NANOG it is worth lively discussion of how to minimize and recover from such events, but I see little of that in this thread. Of course, now I'm guilty too, so I'll shut up and go back to lurking. -- Dick St.Peters, Gatekeeper, Pearly Gateway, Ballston Spa, NY stpeters(a)NetHeaven.com Owner, NetHeaven 518-885-1295/800-910-6671 Internet for Albany/Saratoga, Glens Falls, North Creek, & Lake Placid First Internet service based in the 518 area code

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Re: Netcom Outage (Was: My InfoWorld Column About NANOG)
by Paul Ferguson 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

At 04:48 PM 6/21/96 +0800, Vadim Antonov wrote: > >The Golden Rule of engineering (often forgotten in US) -- the >simplier the system is the better it works. The root of many >Internet woes is in overly complicated router software, that >complexity appears to be running out of control. > Amen, brother. - paul

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Re: Netcom Outage (Was: My InfoWorld Column About NANOG)
by Paul Ferguson 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

At 06:35 PM 6/21/96 -0400, Stephen Balbach wrote: > >Having a fully meshed/redundant network should be the goal of any serious >ISP. The only one that claims it with any substance IMO is UUNET. We are >trying to build one and its not easy. Haveing redundant links in place >does not guarantee instant fall over of traffic. Static routes, IGRP, >iBGP, bridgeing, rip1 vs rip2, etc. are some of the issues we are running >into. As well as when an interface is down, but actually looks up to the >router, etc..it can be done, but there are so many possible points of >failure and unforseen scenarios, it is very difficult to construct and >certainly takes time to develop. > This is where having an excellent engineering staff pays off. :-) - paul

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Re: critique of NANOG meeting
by Matthew Cable/USA.NET Inc. 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

On Thu, 20 Jun 1996, Arun Welch wrote: > > > > HINT: Get somebody to tie the tie and then have it sewed together or > > something so it doesn't accidentally come undone. > > > > Or get a clip-on tie. Even works with t-shirts. > Or even better....a dilbert tie #!/usr/bin/perl -- Matthew Cable -- USA.NET -- Senior System Administrator $fof='8a*)v2*^Gf#*5S="!jh!;F)]#T):)#&f5kR^(%!E<F#Pf)@2farf&*#ahgu)%C:V5R'; print;$arf=eval{$foo="t1!A53%%1!RBF13!\@$%r/R!$7A39\@aB-z^*#\\)BAS/13/4d"; eval{print;};$foo=~tr/A-Z0-9%$!@!//d;$foo;};$tmp="\$fof=~$arf;";eval $tmp; eval;eval;eval;$\=unpack(u35,$fof)."\n";print #;)>#;0>#:|#8)#;P#80#:o#;)#;

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Re: Withdrawls and announcements attempt 2
by avg＠postman.ncube.com 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

The 30 second figure sounds pretty much like the good ol' line flap with default cisco keepalive. I was bothering cisco folks about making static routes persistent by default for quite a while. Although there's a workaround very few people actually bother to use it thus causing bouncing tail links to produce route flap. My suspiction is that this kind of flap accounts for no less than 90% of the total. Another probable contributor is RIP (shouldn't we declare it RIP already?) Most network administrators never heard of a simple maxim -- "Never use dynamic routing when you have a single path". As a result most LANs are plagued by RIP with no reason whatsoever (and many of them inject their IGP routes into BGP!) The lack of any meaningful clock source negotiation and idiotic defaults in CSU/DSUs is a major source of rapid link flap, too. It seems that most (if not all) equipment vendors simply don't have any clue of what effect their design choices have in the real world. --vadim

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Re: My InfoWorld Column About NANOG
by John Curran 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

At 11:31 6/21/96, Bob Metcalfe wrote: >... >A few of you missed one point at least. I am NOT suggesting that any of >YOU start wearing suits, especially if you find them uncomfortable, or that >they make a statement you are not willing to make -- none of that, no -- >good engineers are too valuable to overdress. I am suggesting that more of >the kind of people who ALREADY wear suits should start paying attention to >the important work NANOG is attempting and start attending your meetings so >they can pitch in on the non-engineering aspects of operating the Internet. >Is that clearer now? Bob, I believe that you'll find quite a few folks "concerned with the non-engineering aspects of operating the Internet" amongst the attendee list of each NANOG and IEPG meeting. There is a great deal of activity in trying to scale the current Internet, but it doesn't always happen via the group presentations. One of the disadvantages of the decentralized nature of the Internet is that different organizations have different views on the best way to move forward; I'm not certain that a more centralized model can respond to change as quickly as we've accomplished to date. Are there particular issues that you think should be addressed at NANOG and/or IEPG? Both organizations have a fairly open policy with respect to agenda items and I imagine that your suggestions would be most welcome. >By the way, there are reports from two days ago that 400,000 people lost >their Internet access for 13 hours. Sounds like an outage approaching >"collapse." An interesting characterization... you'd definitely need to talk to NETCOM to determine if it was a "collapse" as opposed to a "serious event" or just a "typical failure mode". >Was that just a Netcom thing that NANOG has no interest in? >Netcom is not talking very much about what happened. Any >clues/facts out there? Were any NAPs involved? Again, NETCOM would be the authoritative source for such info... Reuter's June 19th coverage noted that the problem was related to a problem with a routine change to the "routing table". I will note that operating a large Internet backbone requires availability of staff with very specialized skills in both Internet routing and high-speed networking, and all Internet service providers face quite a challenge in maintaining such staff. This is a risk factor to Internet growth and stablility that receives little attention but nevertheless is quite real. /John p.s. Bob - It's possible that not all NANOG folks have a strong interest in this thread; have you considering creating a mailing list to host a discussion on the Internet's "imminent collapse"?

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Re: My InfoWorld Column About NANOG
by sob＠academ.com 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

Sean writes: > Besides, I find that NANOG is overly USA-American-centric enough without > spending lots of time discussing matters that have little to do with reality > in other parts of North America. This is an interesting comment. I have always found it interesting that NANOG has such a large contingent attending from other parts of the world. I guess we both have our distinct perceptions about NANOG. That's not a good thing or a bad thing. Just a fascinating difference in perception. -- Stan | Academ Consulting Services |internet: sob(a)academ.com Olan | For more info on academ, see this |uucp: {mcsun|amdahl}!academ!sob Barber | URL- http://www.academ.com/academ |Opinions expressed are only mine.

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Re: Withdrawls and announcements attempt 2
by Steven J. Richardson 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

Yeah, that's essentially what cisco said, though I'd guess that you ought to be able to at least not propagate the withdraw back to the peer who sent it to you... But that's just my opinion. Steve R./Merit == >From nanog-owner(a)merit.edu Fri Jun 21 11:26:41 1996 >Received: from merit.edu (merit.edu [35.1.1.42]) by home.merit.edu (8.7.5/merit-2.0) with ESMTP id LAA03178; Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:26:39 -0400 (EDT) >Received: (from daemon@localhost) by merit.edu (8.7.5/merit-2.0) id LAA16611 for nanog-outgoing; Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:20:52 -0400 (EDT) >Received: from chops.icp.net (chops.icp.net [199.0.55.71]) by merit.edu (8.7.5/merit-2.0) with ESMTP id LAA16603 for <nanog(a)merit.edu>; Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:20:31 -0400 (EDT) >Received: by chops.icp.net id <20689>; Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:20:23 +0100 >From: Sean Doran <smd(a)icp.net> >To: justin(a)erols.com, nanog(a)merit.edu >Subject: Re: Withdrawls and announcements attempt 2 >Message-Id: <96Jun21.112023+0100_edt.20689+60(a)chops.icp.net> >Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 11:20:18 +0100 >Sender: owner-nanog(a)merit.edu >Precedence: bulk >Status: R > >Keeping track of the state of who got announced what is likely >to be a very very very bad idea for busy BGP talkers carrying >today's amount of NLRI and instability. > >There are some hacks around the simplistic "if it's in my RIB, >I have to propagate withdrawals to all my neighbours" for some >cases, but a more comprehensive fix would require some Thinking. > >This should probably get migrated over to the BGP list. > > Sean. >

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Re: Withdrawls and announcements attempt 2
by Sean Doran 21 Jun '96

21 Jun '96

Keeping track of the state of who got announced what is likely to be a very very very bad idea for busy BGP talkers carrying today's amount of NLRI and instability. There are some hacks around the simplistic "if it's in my RIB, I have to propagate withdrawals to all my neighbours" for some cases, but a more comprehensive fix would require some Thinking. This should probably get migrated over to the BGP list. Sean.

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