On Fri, 19 Jun 2020 at 11:35, Mark Tinka <mark.tinka@seacom.mu> wrote:
So instead of making it easy for software to generate MPLS packets. We are making it easy for hardware teo generate complex IP packets. Bizarre, but somewhat rational if you start from compute looking out to networks, instead of starting from networks.
Which I totally appreciate and, fundamentally, have nothing against.
My concern is when we, service providers, start to get affected because equipment manufacturers need to follow the data centre money hard, often at our expense. This is not only in the IP world, but also in the Transport world, where service providers are having to buy DWDM gear formatted for DCI. Yes, it does work, but it's not without its eccentricities.
Cycling, over the past decade, between TRILL, OTV, SPB, FabricPath, VXLAN, NV-GRE, ACI... and perhaps even EVPN, there is probably a lesson to be learned.
Maybe this is fundamental and unavoidable, maybe some systematic bias in human thinking drives us towards simple software and complex hardware. Is there an alternative future, where we went with Itanium? Where we have simple hardware and an increasingly complex compiler and increasingly complex runtime making sure the program runs fast on that simple hardware? Instead we have two guys in tel aviv waking up in night terror every night over confusion why does x86 run any code at all, how come it works. And I'm at home 'hehe new intc make program go fast:)))' Now that we have comparatively simple compilers and often no runtime at all, the hardware has to optimise the shitty program for us, but as we don't get to see how the sausage is made, we think it's probably something that is well done, robust and correct. If we'd do this in software, we'd all have to suffer how fragile the compiler and runtime are and how unapproachable they are. -- ++ytti