-----Original Message----- From: Vadim Antonov [mailto:avg@exigengroup.com] Sent: Wednesday, August 08, 2001 3:45 AM To: Christian Kuhtz Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: MPLS VPNs or not?
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I'm known for making strong statements, you are right. However, so far I've heard no convincing argument against these positions; and I tried to solicit opinions by offering the opinions in question for the public review. Frankly, i was disappointed by the "let's wait and see which one works" attitude. As Randy was kind to point out, that attitude already gave us a slew of DOA networking technologies, to the tune of billions wasted.
I don't think UUNET considered it a waste. UUNET could not have grown as quickly as it did during the mid to late 90s without L2 (Frame and ATM) technologies. Fortunately for them, they did not have any pure IP only zealots that prevented the pragmatic use of other technologies in their networks. Otherwise they probably would not have been able to outrun the other ISPs. UUNET received two benefits from it: 1. Speed, since at the time L2 switches were faster than routers, and 2. Traffic engineering, which saved them money in transport costs. Point 1 is no longer valid. Point 2 is still valid. UUNET built bigger and better networks at the time because of this. The market decided that UUNET was right. UUNET's shareholders were well rewarded because of what you called this "waste". I guess the real question should be how much market cap did other companies lose because of certain people's zealotry? Any answers Vadim? Prabhu ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Prabhu Kavi Phone: 1-978-264-4900 x125 Director, Adv. Prod. Planning Fax: 1-978-264-0671 Tenor Networks Email: prabhu_kavi@tenornetworks.com 100 Nagog Park WWW: www.tenornetworks.com Acton, MA 01720
In message <6B190B34070BD411ACA000B0D0214E56CB8128@newman.tenornet.com>, "Kavi, Prabhu" writes:
I don't think UUNET considered it a waste. UUNET could not have grown as quickly as it did during the mid to late 90s without L2 (Frame and ATM) technologies. Fortunately for them, they did not have any pure IP only zealots that prevented the pragmatic use of other technologies in their networks. Otherwise they probably would not have been able to outrun the other ISPs.
I know the history here pretty well (though since I was never employed by UUNET, I'll probably get some of it wrong). It doesn't quite match this description. UUNET was an excellently run ISP well before it starting doing the ATM activity. It came (I suspect) from Rick Adams' days as a struggling ISP, competing against Govt subsidized regional networks, in the 1980s. If you look at their various SEC filings in their first few years, they're a tightly run company. Once UUNET was acquired by Worldcom, UUNET had access to Worldcom's network infrastructure, which was heavily ATM, and which UUNET had to share with the Worldcom's (very lucractive) voice traffic. In that context, there was a real cost to using bandwidth and UUNET had to use account for its usage. Some other ISPs were/are in a different business model -- they owned their fiber runs, outright, and the question for them was whether to put run ATM over that fiber, and subdivide the bandwidth of a single waveband, or light two wavebands (one voice/one IP). I've seen the marginal cost analysis for that kind of decision, and it often favors two wavebands. Craig
Craig Partridge writes:
Once UUNET was acquired by Worldcom, UUNET had access to Worldcom's network infrastructure, which was heavily ATM, and which UUNET had to share with the Worldcom's (very lucractive) voice traffic. In that context, there was a real cost to using bandwidth and UUNET had to use account for its usage.
I can authoritatively say that UUNET never ran its backbone on the Worldcom customer-facing ATM network. For one thing, it was no larger than the IP backbone to start with and was quickly outpaced by the IP backbone, which ran on its own ATM network.
Some other ISPs were/are in a different business model -- they owned their fiber runs, outright, and the question for them was whether to put run ATM over that fiber, and subdivide the bandwidth of a single waveband, or light two wavebands (one voice/one IP). I've seen the marginal cost analysis for that kind of decision, and it often favors two wavebands.
I never looked at it this way, but then direct access to the fiber at Worldcom was not really an option. It was only a question of what we terminated circuits on. At the time, there were no IP routers that could credibly terminate OC12, which lent a certain clarity to the decisionmaking.
On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kavi, Prabhu wrote:
I don't think UUNET considered it a waste. UUNET could not have grown as quickly as it did during the mid to late 90s without L2 (Frame and ATM) technologies. Fortunately for them, they did not have any pure IP only zealots that prevented the pragmatic use of other technologies in their networks. Otherwise they probably would not have been able to outrun the other ISPs. UUNET received two benefits from it: 1. Speed, since at the time L2 switches were faster than routers, and 2. Traffic engineering, which saved them money in transport costs. Point 1 is no longer valid. Point 2 is still valid. UUNET built bigger and better networks at the time because of this. The market decided that UUNET was right. UUNET's shareholders were well rewarded because of what you called this "waste".
I don't think you can make a strong argument on TE being that big of a factor. It's more likely that the provider market's winner-take-all nature combined with acquisitions and attrition contributed much more to their growth then and benefits derived from traffic engineering. Furthermore, it may be possible that complex traffic engineering is becoming less of a factor as backbone networks become increasingly based on physical transports that are less heterogenous (in terms of log(backbone_speed/client access speed)). -- The comments and opinions expressed herein are those of the author of this message and may not reflect the policies of the Martin County Board of County Commissioners.
On Wed, 8 Aug 2001 08:56:53 -0400 "Kavi, Prabhu" wrote:
I guess the real question should be how much market cap did other companies lose because of certain people's zealotry? Any answers Vadim?
Prabhu; What evidence do you have that: 1) UUnet is/was a success, 2) if it was a success, the determining factor was its use of ATM, rather than its first mover advantage, financial/management stucture, industry trends, etc. For example, UUnet used ATM because that was what the bellheads would sell them. At the time, there was no alternative to the bellheads. regards, fletcher
I don't think UUNET considered it a waste. UUNET could not have grown as quickly as it did during the mid to late 90s without L2 (Frame and ATM) technologies. Fortunately for them, they did not have any pure IP only zealots that prevented the pragmatic use of other technologies in their networks. Otherwise they probably would not have been able to outrun the other ISPs.
UUNET received two benefits from it:
1. Speed, since at the time L2 switches were faster than routers, and 2. Traffic engineering, which saved them money in transport costs.
Point 1 is no longer valid. Point 2 is still valid.
UUNET built bigger and better networks at the time because of this. The market decided that UUNET was right. UUNET's shareholders were well rewarded because of what you called this "waste".
I guess the real question should be how much market cap did other companies lose because of certain people's zealotry? Any answers Vadim?
Diddn't PSInet deploy L2 switching massively throughout their network? What did the market decide about that? Could it be that UUNet's success was due to other factors? BTW, I'm not sure that #1 above was ever true in a large scale network. KL
On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 01:52:47PM -0400, Kevin Loch wrote:
Diddn't PSInet deploy L2 switching massively throughout their network? What did the market decide about that? Could it be that UUNet's success was due to other factors? BTW, I'm not sure that #1 above was ever true in a large scale network.
NETCOM did it too. I think he's got it all wrong. Selecting the wrong technology /can/ kill you, but it's unlikely to make you a success. --msa
On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 12:55:44PM -0700, Majdi S. Abbas wrote:
NETCOM did it too.
I think he's got it all wrong.
Selecting the wrong technology /can/ kill you, but it's unlikely to make you a success.
Did they every finally set the last switch they decom'ed on fire? Or was it just the sledgehammer drill? I had to miss the party... -- *************************************************************************** Joel Baker System Administrator - lightbearer.com lucifer@lightbearer.com http://www.lightbearer.com/~lucifer
On Wed, 8 Aug 2001, Kavi, Prabhu wrote:
I don't think UUNET considered it a waste. UUNET could not have grown as quickly as it did during the mid to late 90s without L2 (Frame and ATM) technologies. Fortunately for them, they did not have any pure IP only zealots that prevented the pragmatic use of other technologies in their networks.
Did I ever argue against L2 switching? It is a fine way to do traffic aggregation/deaggregation. Just don't do _routing_ with that.
Otherwise they probably would not have been able to outrun the other ISPs.
UUNET received two benefits from it:
1. Speed, since at the time L2 switches were faster than routers, and
Ghm. FR boxen were cheaper, not faster. ATM at some point was faster, but was (still is?) quite flaky. Networks i engineered had plenty of L2 switches in them - for clustering in POPs.
2. Traffic engineering, which saved them money in transport costs.
TE at the cost of 20% of available bandwidth wasted to cell tax? You must be kidding. Do not forget that TE could be done at SONET level, too.
I guess the real question should be how much market cap did other companies lose because of certain people's zealotry? Any answers Vadim?
Absolutely. Stupidity of your regular analysts, who were rewarding companies investing into the latest overhyped crap. I hope these times are over by now, and companies will actually start looking at the bottom line. Now, if you find an example of a network going down _because_ of pure-IP design (not because of stupid business tactics such as overexpansion, idiotic acquisitions, or simple mismanagement), i'll agree with you. So far, most of networks which went down (or were acquired at bargain prices) were hybrid designs. Also note that UUNET _did not_ survive as an independent ISP. I know few ex-UUNET folks who weren't very thrilled because of that. --vadim
participants (9)
-
Craig Partridge -
Fletcher E Kittredge -
Greg Maxwell -
jmalcolmļ¼ uraeus.com -
Joel Baker -
Kavi, Prabhu -
Kevin Loch -
Majdi S. Abbas -
Vadim Antonov