vgill@vijaygill.com (vijay gill) writes:
Throwing ethernet cables over the ceiling does not scale.
i think it's important to distinguish between "things aol and uunet don't think are good for aol and uunet" and "things that aren't good for anybody." what i found through my PAIX experience is that the second tier is really quite deep and broad, and that the first tier doesn't ignore them like their spokesmodels claim they do. what i found in helping to hone the ssni approach is that while public peering "ethernet style" is dead, vni/pni peering is alive and well. anyone who does not agree is free to behave that way. but it's not useful to try to dissuade cooperating adults from peering any way they want to. the interesting evolutionary aspect to this is that vni/pni peering starting with atm and moving to pni doesn't work at all, because atm by and large has a high cost per bit at the interface, and a low top end, and usually doesn't mandate co-location. but vni/pni peering over 802.1Q usually does succeed, because of the low cost per bit at the interface, the obscenely high top end, and the greater likelihood that the vni parties are co-located and so can switch to pni when the traffic volume warrants it. i've been told that if i ran a tier-1 i would lose my love for the vni/pni approach, which i think scales quite nicely even when it involves an ethernet cable through the occasional ceiling. perhaps i'll eat these words when and if that promotion comes through. meanwhile, disintermediation is still my favorite word in the internet dictionary. i like it when one's competitors are free to do business with each other, it leads to more and better innovation. -- Paul Vixie