On Fri, Nov 26, 2004 10:29:15PM -0800, Fred Baker allegedly wrote:
The thing that brings me out here is the "one size fits all" reasoning that seems to soll around this community so regularly. "Multihoming should always use provider-independent addressing" and "Multihoming should always use provider-dependent addressing" are the statements in this debate. Well, you know what? The argument relating to someone's home while he is switching from DSL to Cable Modem access service isn't the same as the argument for a multinational corporation. I don't see any reason that the solution has to be the same either.
This is good. The simple, elegant rules of thumb we've been trying to use for so long haven't resolved the PI argument. Adding a couple parameters is a good idea.
So here's my proposal. If you qualify for an AS number (have a reasonable business plan, clueful IT staff, and a certain number of ISPs one connects with), you should also be able to be a PI prefix.
Except that this still tries to create a simple, elegant rule of thumb, by indirection -- by dependency on how requirements are defined for something else. The requirements are similar right now but the motivation is different. People get ASNs for administrative autonomy and because of how routing works. I think we need to spell out the requirements for PI address space separately because motivations may (will!) change in the future. Reduction in overall complexity, etc. Scott