At 07:47 PM 22/09/2000 -0400, William Waites wrote:
Kai Schlichting <kai@pac-rim.net> wrote:
What 'threshold' has triggered this sudden event, with routes going from 60,000 to 90,000 in just 12 months? Multihoming becoming fashionable? Dinky-rink providers getting multihomed, and for lack
Fashionable or not, multihoming is a usefull and sound practice. The problem is that regulatory organizations (ex. ARIN) make it very difficult to do it properly, and so cause inefficient use of address space and routing table bloat.
I cannot speak about ARIN, but in my interactions with APNIC, they are all too well aware of the issues around multihoming and global routing table size. Their job is to manage (/conserve) Internet resources including AS numbers, and more justification for AS numbers is being required as time goes on (similar to the experience our US compatriots are discovering with address space ;-). In some respects, address space conservation is at odds with routing table minimization, especially in a multihomed world, and when you throw in commercial pressures, common sense often goes out the window. The IETF CIDR-D(eployment) group was a forum to thrash over these issues, but as primarily operational issue, was wound up in the standards arena after CIDR was widely deployed and the BCP process was concluded. The IEPG still touches on this, but it really is in the realm of the operations groups now. Routing table size may well take over as the 'Internet boogy-man' from address space exhaustion, and I'm not convinced that IPv6 will help much here. Best practice behavior will help, but one has to remember the new universal constant of 'clue factor'. -- Chris Chaundy (Director - Network Services) connect.com.au pty ltd, Level 9, 114 Albert Road, Sth Melbourne, VIC 3205, Aust. Internet: chris@connect.com.au Phone: +61 3 9251 3671 Fax: +61 3 9251 3666