MA> Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2006 16:31:56 +0100 (CET) MA> From: Mikael Abrahamsson MA> The current routing model doesn't scale. I don't want to sit 5 years from MA> now needing a router that'll handle 8 million routes to get me through the MA> next 5 years of route growth. MA> MA> PI space for multihoming and AS number growth is a bad thing for scaling and MA> economics, however you look at it. I'm going to suggest something horribly radical (or nostalgic, depending how long one has been in the industry): inter-provider cooperation. Let's examine _why_ the routing table might become large. Lots of smaller players multihoming, yes? Say two million small businesses multihome using SBC and Cox. Must we have two million global ASNs and routes? Of course not. Let SBC and Cox obtain a _joint_ ASN and _joint_ address space. Each provider announces the aggregate co-op space via the joint ASN as a downstream. This is very similar to a downstream using a private ASN to connect to one upstream in two different locations. i.e., transit provider uses the same ASN for all such customers, and certainly needn't pollute the global table with longer prefixes. We're dealing with _one_ routing policy: hand it to Cox, or hand it to SBC. Why explode it into two million "different" policies? Look at MPLS. It essentially hunts down congruent or similar routing policies, slaps a tag on the packet, and routes based on that. Why not explore options that get it right and coalesce from the get-go? Note also that this is totally op-community. No new protocols required. It can be done today without forklifts. I thought I proposed this at 35. Maybe that was one of the open mic sessions where time ran out... Eddy -- Everquick Internet - http://www.everquick.net/ A division of Brotsman & Dreger, Inc. - http://www.brotsman.com/ Bandwidth, consulting, e-commerce, hosting, and network building Phone: +1 785 865 5885 Lawrence and [inter]national Phone: +1 316 794 8922 Wichita ________________________________________________________________________ DO NOT send mail to the following addresses: davidc@brics.com -*- jfconmaapaq@intc.net -*- sam@everquick.net Sending mail to spambait addresses is a great way to get blocked. Ditto for broken OOO autoresponders and foolish AV software backscatter.