On Wed, 25 May 2005, Eric A. Hall wrote:
On 5/25/2005 3:42 PM, Lars Erik Gullerud wrote:
I.e. my customer with two offices who run their own IPSec tunnel between, should in other words no longer be able to pay me for improved delivery without buying a full VPN offering from me (which they don't really need, or want)?
If they don't need or want special handling what are they paying for? But since they are paying for it, perhaps its up to you to figure out how to deliver on your promise.
But here is what you don't seem to understand - I DO deliver on my promise. Said customer's packets WILL get special handling, my backbone routers will happily put whatever packets they tag with a non-BE DSCP in the appropriate queues as the packet traverses the network. Or if they prefer, we can even tag it FOR them on the access router they are connected to. Where's the offloaded complexity you refer to? The "general population", who does NOT pay for that privilege, gets the BE-treatment, which is what they pay for. And that requires a rewrite of the DSCP/TOS for said traffic, otherwise how do you prevent packets from the "general population" filling up the queues you have reserved for the customers who pay you more? Rewrite-to-BE is pretty commonplace these days you know. If I understand you correctly, you are saying this service (which a lot of ISPs offer, and a lot of customers pay them for), has no right to exist, and everyone should go out and buy provider-based VPNs or dedicated L2 connectivity instead. The thing is - not all customers WANT a provider-based VPN. And if customers want something, you can be sure providers are selling it.
And yet, getting somebody to pay for something/nothing (as the case may be) doesn't come with a license to manhandle everybody else's traffic.
Sure it does. There is this new thing called the marketplace. If you pay me for special treatment, I will give you special treatment. If you don't, then I will carry your traffic according to the terms in your contract, which, in the case of best-effort service, is best-effort service. If you are unhappy with the service, you can buy a different service, or choose a different supplier. That being said, I don't believe ANYONE has ever complained about their packets being "manhandled" by the DSCP being rewritten to BE - even customers seem to understand that "you get what you pay for", and special treatment in the form of QoS costs more money. /leg