On Nov 4, 2008, at 11:51 AM, Tomas L. Byrnes wrote:
The concept of "Transit Free" is a political failure, not a technical one.
We disagree.
The protocols are designed, and the original concept behind the Internet is, to propagate all reachability via all paths. IE to use Transit if peering fails.
Not doing so is a policy decision that breaks the redundancy in the original design.
Using the 'original design' (and honestly, your assertion is debatable) would not have allowed the Internet to scale to the size it is today. Or even the size it was 10 years ago. So I guess you could say the current situation is a political success. -- TTFN, patrick
-----Original Message----- From: Patrick W. Gilmore [mailto:patrick@ianai.net] Sent: Tuesday, November 04, 2008 8:10 AM To: NANOG list Subject: Re: Sprint v. Cogent, some clarity & facts
On Nov 4, 2008, at 11:02 AM, David Schwartz wrote:
Patrick W. Gilmore wrote:
On Nov 4, 2008, at 9:49 AM, David Freedman wrote:
2. The Internet cannot "route around" de-peering I know everyone believes "the Internet routes around failures". While occasionally true, it does not hold in this case. To "route around" the "failure" would require transit. See item #1.
The internet "routes around" technical failures, not political ones.
If two transit free networks have a technical failure which disables all peering between them, the Internet cannot route around it.
Sure it can. The traffic just flows through any of the providers that still have reliable high-bandwidth connectivity to both of those providers.
Unless, of course, a pre-existing political failure prohibits this traffic. The Internet can't route around that political failure.
Perhaps you missed the "transit free" part.
If Sprint & UUNET have a technical failure causing all peering to go down, Level 3 will not magically transport packets between the two, despite the fact L3 has "reliable high-bandwidth connectivity to both of those providers". How would you propose L3 bill UU & Sprint for it? On second thought, don't answer that, I don't think it would be a useful discussion.
Or are you claiming the fact every network does not give every other network transit a "political failure". If you are, we should agree to disagree and move on.
From a technical standpoint, the Internet is always suffering from multiple political failures. This leaves it vulnerable to small technical failures it could otherwise route around.
See above. I do not think it is a "political failure" that I do not give you free transit.
-- TTFN, patrick