Hi there, Is it possible, even at this late date, to allow someone from MFS to comment at NANOG on what is being done to relieve inter switch congestion at MAE East and West and what kind of time frames we can expect a resolution in? This is seriously affecting the performance of the Internet as a whole, and seems to me to be a very valid operational topic for the conference. ************************************************************** Justin W. Newton voice: +1-650-482-2840 Senior Network Architect fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net Legislative and Policy Director, ISP/C http://www.ispc.org "The People You Know. The People You Trust." **************************************************************
Justin W. Newton wrote:
Hi there, Is it possible, even at this late date, to allow someone from MFS to comment at NANOG on what is being done to relieve inter switch congestion at MAE East and West and what kind of time frames we can expect a resolution in?
I second that motion !
This is seriously affecting the performance of the Internet as a whole, and seems to me to be a very valid operational topic for the conference.
With about 1/3 of all global internet passing through that parking garage out there, 20% loss starts to take on a whole new meaning... While we are queing it up.......... What is the status of the HOL at the GIGA's ? I understand the new code went in.... But, I guess you still can't put 5 pounds of "stuff" in a 3 pound bag , huh ? ;) Seriously, the Nanog would be a great time for MAE-E/W to speak up.
************************************************************** Justin W. Newton voice: +1-650-482-2840 Senior Network Architect fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net Legislative and Policy Director, ISP/C http://www.ispc.org "The People You Know. The People You Trust." **************************************************************
Dorian R. Kim wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Richard Irving wrote:
With about 1/3 of all global internet passing through that parking garage out there, 20% loss starts to take on a whole new meaning...
Just curious, but how was that figure arrived at?
Fair enough, I am quoting the newspapers. They recently ran an article about MAE-E, and made the claim that nearly 1/3 of all internet passes through MAE-E. I did not question this revelation... Perhaps I should have. After all, it made it into print, it *can't* be wrong! ;) Unless you mean the 20%, in which case it is pure conjecture. When *I* see MAE-E go lossy, it is typically around 20%. I have no idea why "The Loss" favors this number. Or, even if other carriers hover about 20% when MAE-E goes lossy.... Food for thought though........ Cheers.
-dorian
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Dorian R. Kim wrote: ==>On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Richard Irving wrote: ==> ==>> With about 1/3 of all global internet passing through that parking ==>> garage out there, 20% loss starts to take on a whole new meaning... ==> ==>Just curious, but how was that figure arrived at? This figure came out of the most recent Data Communications magazine. The cover had a picture of the parking garage with a cadillac and some grandmother driving it near a secured door. It had a dark, scary caption "One-third of the internet's traffic runs through this underground parking garage in McLean, VA. Should you be scared?" or something similar. /cah
Is there a tour for this place? On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Craig A. Huegen wrote:
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Dorian R. Kim wrote:
==>On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Richard Irving wrote: ==> ==>> With about 1/3 of all global internet passing through that parking ==>> garage out there, 20% loss starts to take on a whole new meaning... ==> ==>Just curious, but how was that figure arrived at?
This figure came out of the most recent Data Communications magazine. The cover had a picture of the parking garage with a cadillac and some grandmother driving it near a secured door. It had a dark, scary caption "One-third of the internet's traffic runs through this underground parking garage in McLean, VA. Should you be scared?" or something similar.
/cah
Well, I don't know about 20% but this past week when mae-east was having its fits, pinging router to router across the fddi, I saw 10% at times. (Using, I think, 250 packets.)
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Richard Irving wrote:
With about 1/3 of all global internet passing through that parking garage out there, 20% loss starts to take on a whole new meaning...
Just curious, but how was that figure arrived at?
-dorian
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wayne Bouchard GlobalCenter web@primenet.com Primenet Network Engineering Internet Solutions for (602) 416-6422 800-373-2499 x6422 Growing Businesses FAX: (602) 416-9422 http://www.primenet.com http://www.globalcenter.net ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, I don't know about 20% but this past week when mae-east was having its fits, pinging router to router across the fddi, I saw 10% at times. (Using, I think, 250 packets.)
Mmmm... our record was 70% loss. 20% to some people is a normal state of affairs. -- Alex Bligh GX Networks (formerly Xara Networks)
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Richard Irving wrote: ==> With about 1/3 of all global internet passing through that parking ==>garage out there, 20% loss starts to take on a whole new meaning... Looks like someone else saw the Data Communications hype. /cah
Just wondering through MAE graphs. It looks like around Oct 3rd Mae-East was moving about 1300Mbit or so. After that its been unable to rise about 660Mbit or so.
From what WorldComm just told us, Scott Gross and DEC are working on a software patch "around the clock" to solve the problem.
-Deepak. On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Justin W. Newton wrote:
Hi there, Is it possible, even at this late date, to allow someone from MFS to comment at NANOG on what is being done to relieve inter switch congestion at MAE East and West and what kind of time frames we can expect a resolution in?
This is seriously affecting the performance of the Internet as a whole, and seems to me to be a very valid operational topic for the conference.
************************************************************** Justin W. Newton voice: +1-650-482-2840 Senior Network Architect fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net Legislative and Policy Director, ISP/C http://www.ispc.org "The People You Know. The People You Trust." **************************************************************
Hey all, If I could add a NAP to this list, the Sprint NAP is having horrific packet loss and I understand that legal action was necessary to get the invovled parties to resolve the situation. Here's the information I received from a source at MCI. I suggest you label this information as rumor and change it as you see fit. :) There is a FDDI Ring at the NAP which was overcrowded. It apparently took some legal action to get Sprint (or whoever is responsible for the Sprint NAP :) ) to make the necessary upgrades. What I've heard is that 4 GigaSwitches are being installed from MFS and that this installation/upgrade ETR is 1-2 months. What I can tell you for sure is that we are seeing between 10-25% packet loss on a daily basis across that NAP. We have seen these numbers on both our MCI and UUNet connection. (for the record, the UUNet packet loss is generally lower, of course I get randomnly disconnected from various sites when using UUNet... its all compromise these days...) So, where is Bob Metcalfe when you need him??? :) Sorry for the me too post... I feel like an AOLer... Sean Rolinson snowdog@bigfoot.com snowdog@charm.net
Hi there, Is it possible, even at this late date, to allow someone from MFS to comment at NANOG on what is being done to relieve inter switch congestion at MAE East and West and what kind of time frames we can expect a resolution in?
This is seriously affecting the performance of the Internet as a whole, and seems to me to be a very valid operational topic for the conference.
************************************************************** Justin W. Newton voice: +1-650-482-2840 Senior Network Architect fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net Legislative and Policy Director, ISP/C http://www.ispc.org "The People You Know. The People You Trust." **************************************************************
At 21:03 10/21/97 -0400, Snowdog wrote:
Hey all,
If I could add a NAP to this list, the Sprint NAP is having horrific packet loss and I understand that legal action was necessary to get the invovled parties to resolve the situation.
According to my GIGAswitch counters this claim is without basis. The Sprint NAP is not suffering any packet loss, let alone "horrific". What legal action are you referring to? Is this action towards the ISPs or the Sprint NAP? I know of no legal action against us!
Here's the information I received from a source at MCI. I suggest you label this information as rumor and change it as you see fit. :)
Can you reveal your source? I have received no complaints from MCI or others at the NAP.
There is a FDDI Ring at the NAP which was overcrowded. It apparently took some legal action to get Sprint (or whoever is responsible for the Sprint NAP :) ) to make the necessary upgrades. What I've heard is that 4 GigaSwitches are being installed from MFS and that this installation/upgrade ETR is 1-2 months.
You obviously have no knowledge of Sprint's NAP topology! All providers are directly connected to GIGAswitch ports. Only providers with one (1) DS3 to their router share one GIGAswitch LAN. Hardly enough traffic to saturate a 100 Mbps (dedicated) LAN!
What I can tell you for sure is that we are seeing between 10-25% packet loss on a daily basis across that NAP. We have seen these numbers on both our MCI and UUNet connection. (for the record, the UUNet packet loss is generally lower, of course I get randomnly disconnected from various sites when using UUNet... its all compromise these days...)
This packet loss may be caused on the ingress/egress WAN links and not attributed to the NAP.
So, where is Bob Metcalfe when you need him??? :)
Sorry for the me too post... I feel like an AOLer...
Sean Rolinson snowdog@bigfoot.com snowdog@charm.net
**************************************************************************** **** Phone: 1.816.854.2113 Fax: 1.816.854.2201 Numeric Pages: 1.800.724.3329, PIN 398.6644 Alpha Pages: 1.800.724.3508, PIN 398.6644 Outside U.S.: +1.619.279.8495, PIN 398.6644 Text Page via Internet: 8882079104.3986644@pagenet.net **************************************************************************** ****
Steven (and all), First I feel I should apologize to you and Sprint. I have spoken with our MCI guy and found out that they are waiting on the install of 2 DS3's on Oct. 30th. One being installed in to Sprint NAP 3 and one in to Sprint NAP 4. I am not sure why he mentioned that there was a problem with the NAP itself. It might have been easier than explaining to us that they needed additional bandwidth. :) At any rate, I jumped the gun in the assumption of the story I was being fed. The two tickets we have open with MCI are: 794 (Sept 13) 1320 (Oct 6) They are supposed to be appended to other tickets as well. Sean Rolinson snowdog@charm.net
At 21:03 10/21/97 -0400, Snowdog wrote:
Hey all,
If I could add a NAP to this list, the Sprint NAP is having horrific packet loss and I understand that legal action was necessary to get the invovled parties to resolve the situation.
According to my GIGAswitch counters this claim is without basis. The Sprint NAP is not suffering any packet loss, let alone "horrific". What legal action are you referring to? Is this action towards the ISPs or the Sprint NAP? I know of no legal action against us!
Here's the information I received from a source at MCI. I suggest you label this information as rumor and change it as you see fit. :)
Can you reveal your source? I have received no complaints from MCI or others at the NAP.
There is a FDDI Ring at the NAP which was overcrowded. It apparently took some legal action to get Sprint (or whoever is responsible for the Sprint NAP :) ) to make the necessary upgrades. What I've heard is that 4 GigaSwitches are being installed from MFS and that this installation/upgrade ETR is 1-2 months.
You obviously have no knowledge of Sprint's NAP topology! All providers are directly connected to GIGAswitch ports. Only providers with one (1) DS3 to their router share one GIGAswitch LAN. Hardly enough traffic to saturate a 100 Mbps (dedicated) LAN!
What I can tell you for sure is that we are seeing between 10-25% packet loss on a daily basis across that NAP. We have seen these numbers on both our MCI and UUNet connection. (for the record, the UUNet packet loss is generally lower, of course I get randomnly disconnected from various sites when using UUNet... its all compromise these days...)
This packet loss may be caused on the ingress/egress WAN links and not attributed to the NAP.
So, where is Bob Metcalfe when you need him??? :)
Sorry for the me too post... I feel like an AOLer...
Sean Rolinson snowdog@bigfoot.com snowdog@charm.net
**************************************************************************** ****
Phone: 1.816.854.2113 Fax: 1.816.854.2201
Numeric Pages: 1.800.724.3329, PIN 398.6644 Alpha Pages: 1.800.724.3508, PIN 398.6644 Outside U.S.: +1.619.279.8495, PIN 398.6644
Text Page via Internet: 8882079104.3986644@pagenet.net
**************************************************************************** ****
Can you reveal your source? I have received no complaints from MCI or others at the NAP.
There is a FDDI Ring at the NAP which was overcrowded. It apparently took some legal action to get Sprint (or whoever is responsible for the Sprint NAP :) ) to make the necessary upgrades. What I've heard is that 4 GigaSwitches are being installed from MFS and that this installation/upgrade ETR is 1-2 months.
You obviously have no knowledge of Sprint's NAP topology! All providers are directly connected to GIGAswitch ports. Only providers with one (1) DS3 to their router share one GIGAswitch LAN. Hardly enough traffic to saturate a 100 Mbps (dedicated) LAN!
No worries, Steve - Some goober has confused Pennsauken with MAE-East. Considering the trouble that MFS had getting their one Netedge turned up to bridge Pennsauken out to the world a few years ago (<poke poke>), it's unlikely that they'd try to bring 4 Gigaswitches in :) As a happy NAP user, I can say that Pennsauken is truly a stable telco- grade facility. Which makes it slow to get things turned up. And hard for ISPs to deal with at times. Session uptimes of many months are usual at Pennsauken, and I've NEVER seen NAP-caused packet loss there. Avi
Maybe I misread your note. Please clarify.
If I could add a NAP to this list, the Sprint NAP is having horrific packet loss and I understand that legal action was necessary to get the invovled parties to resolve the situation. ... There is a FDDI Ring at the NAP which was overcrowded. It apparently took some legal action to get Sprint (or whoever is responsible for the Sprint NAP :) ) to make the necessary upgrades. What I've heard is that 4 GigaSwitches are being installed from MFS and that this installation/upgrade ETR is 1-2 months.
Are you saying that Sprint obtained 4 GigaSwitches from MFS? -a
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Justin W. Newton wrote:
Is it possible, even at this late date, to allow someone from MFS to comment at NANOG on what is being done to relieve inter switch congestion at MAE East and West and what kind of time frames we can expect a resolution in?
This is seriously affecting the performance of the Internet as a whole, and seems to me to be a very valid operational topic for the conference.
Then perhaps it might of interest to start a meta discussion about problems of scalability of Gigaswitch based exchange points as well as possible future direction of such large exchange points? -dorian
On Oct 21, "Dorian R. Kim" <dorian@blackrose.org> wrote:
Then perhaps it might of interest to start a meta discussion about problems of scalability of Gigaswitch based exchange points as well as possible future direction of such large exchange points?
AFAIK, there are only two types of exchanges out there today: 1. Switched Ethernet and/or FDDI 2. ATM We all know switched ethernet doesn't scale by itself, which is why we've gone to switched FDDI. And, it's quite possible that we're reaching the end of scalability for switched FDDI -- unless, of course, some amazing new technolgy comes along and fixes everything in one swell foop. Are the ATM-based NAP's having any problems with scalability these days? How far can they go? Personally, I'd also be really curious as to any testing that people have done or are doing in terms of other forms of NAP fabric. Will gigabit ethernet save us all? ********************************************************* J.D. Falk voice: +1-650-482-2840 Supervisor, Network Operations fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net "The People You Know. The People You Trust." *********************************************************
On Oct 21, "Dorian R. Kim" <dorian@blackrose.org> wrote:
Then perhaps it might of interest to start a meta discussion about problems of scalability of Gigaswitch based exchange points as well as possible future direction of such large exchange points?
Gigabit Ethernet as a backbone technology -- too little, too late. IMO, betting on physical media speeds keeping up with traffic is silly. Actually, there is at least one known way to build an exchange point which scales nearly indefinitely. We're working on making it real. Other folks may have other ideas. --vadim
Actually, there is at least one known way to build an exchange point which scales nearly indefinitely. We're working on making it real. Other folks may have other ideas.
Cool, Vadim; welcome to the ATM bandwagon! :-) -alan
Alan Hannan wrote:
Actually, there is at least one known way to build an exchange point which scales nearly indefinitely. We're working on making it real. Other folks may have other ideas.
Cool, Vadim; welcome to the ATM bandwagon!
:-)
Oh, yeah, sure, dude. :) --vadim
Aren't all the Gigaswitches from DEC ATM backed anyway? (FDDI is an emulation on an OC3/12 card slot?) That's what the DEC literature seemed to say when I perused it last. -Deepak. On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Alan Hannan wrote:
Actually, there is at least one known way to build an exchange point which scales nearly indefinitely. We're working on making it real. Other folks may have other ideas.
Cool, Vadim; welcome to the ATM bandwagon!
:-)
-alan
At 00:36 10/22/97 -0400, Deepak Jain wrote:
Aren't all the Gigaswitches from DEC ATM backed anyway? (FDDI is an emulation on an OC3/12 card slot?) That's what the DEC literature seemed to say when I perused it last.
-Deepak.
Absolutely not. The GS/F and the GS/A are not the same. They even employ slightly different crossbar architectures. The GS/F does support an ATM line card however. ss
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Alan Hannan wrote:
Actually, there is at least one known way to build an exchange point which scales nearly indefinitely. We're working on making it real. Other folks may have other ideas.
Cool, Vadim; welcome to the ATM bandwagon!
:-)
-alan
**************************************************************************** **** Phone: 1.816.854.2113 Fax: 1.816.854.2201 Numeric Pages: 1.800.724.3329, PIN 398.6644 Alpha Pages: 1.800.724.3508, PIN 398.6644 Outside U.S.: +1.619.279.8495, PIN 398.6644 Text Page via Internet: 8882079104.3986644@pagenet.net **************************************************************************** ****
of NAP fabric. Will gigabit ethernet save us all?
I think the question is, "Will *any* technology ever be able to save us all?" I think (IMHO, and I am no expert, of course, as I have been told so many times) that the need will always be a step or two ahead of what is available. Sad; but true.
On Tue, Oct 21, 1997 at 07:24:29PM -0700, J.D. Falk wrote:
AFAIK, there are only two types of exchanges out there today:
1. Switched Ethernet and/or FDDI 2. ATM
I guess you mean 'only two types of _public_ exchanges'. The answer we all come up with might very well be that exchanging traffic over public media is just not a good idea. The network might very well have gotten to the point that it just doesn't make sense to have such a vital piece of it completely under a third parties control. Alec -- +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+ |Alec Peterson - ahp@hilander.com | Erols Internet Services, INC. | |Network Engineer | Springfield, VA. | +------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
At 19:24 10/21/97 -0700, J.D. Falk wrote:
On Oct 21, "Dorian R. Kim" <dorian@blackrose.org> wrote:
Then perhaps it might of interest to start a meta discussion about problems of scalability of Gigaswitch based exchange points as well as possible future direction of such large exchange points?
AFAIK, there are only two types of exchanges out there today:
1. Switched Ethernet and/or FDDI 2. ATM
We all know switched ethernet doesn't scale by itself, which is why we've gone to switched FDDI.
And, it's quite possible that we're reaching the end of scalability for switched FDDI -- unless, of course, some amazing new technolgy comes along and fixes everything in one swell foop.
FDDI is a finished standard and no more bandwidth upgrades are planned. Ethernet, however, is now in the gigabit range. It may be extended to operate in the multi-gigabit range, if the IEEE decides the frame format and the media access method will work at such speeds. Products based on GbE are in use today. A NAP can drop in one or two GbE switches, connect them to existing GIGAswitch/FDDIs, and scale (somewhat) from there. Come to NANOG this next week to see how this can be done. The nice thing about the GbE switches (I note the Prominent Cajun P550 and the DEC GIGAswitch/Ethernet switches) is that they give you instant access to over 45 Gbps of (almost) non-blocking switch fabric. GigaLabs has a monster of a switch with over 128 Gbps of non-blocking fabric (GbE uplinks only however). The only downsides right now with most current GbE switches is that they only support 10/100BASE and GbE uplinks, offer no QoS and limited flow-control mechanisms. The flow-control protocol for GbE has not yet been finalized by the IEEE. All implementations of this are vendor-proprietary. (Be sure your vendor upgrades you to the Standard at no cost!). Connecting a router to a switch using a standard a Fast Ethernet adapter gives you 200 Mbps of full-duplex throughput. This is adequate for anyone with an OC-3 behind their router. Hell, anyone with more bandwidth into the NAP can probably purchase multiple Fast Ethernet links from the NAP operator. These adapters are less costly than full-duplex FDDI adapters, and the prices for switch ports and router adapters are declining. I think that GbE technology permits the NAPs to support increasing bandwidth requirements for the foreseeable future. Beyond that, maybe the ISPs with heavy-duty requirements should consider private interconnects outside the NAPs. Steven
Are the ATM-based NAP's having any problems with scalability these days? How far can they go?
Personally, I'd also be really curious as to any testing that people have done or are doing in terms of other forms of NAP fabric. Will gigabit ethernet save us all?
********************************************************* J.D. Falk voice: +1-650-482-2840 Supervisor, Network Operations fax: +1-650-482-2844 PRIORI NETWORKS, INC. http://www.priori.net
"The People You Know. The People You Trust." *********************************************************
**************************************************************************** **** Phone: 1.816.854.2113 Fax: 1.816.854.2201 Numeric Pages: 1.800.724.3329, PIN 398.6644 Alpha Pages: 1.800.724.3508, PIN 398.6644 Outside U.S.: +1.619.279.8495, PIN 398.6644 Text Page via Internet: 8882079104.3986644@pagenet.net **************************************************************************** ****
On Tue, 21 Oct 1997, Dorian R. Kim wrote:
Then perhaps it might of interest to start a meta discussion about problems of scalability of Gigaswitch based exchange points as well as possible future direction of such large exchange points?
The two primary questions to answer this are "What technology is readily available?", and "What is the anticipated need?". It would be nice if MFS gave historical data at http://www.mfst.com/MAE/west.stats.html in a format like MRTG does, rather than just listing weekly traffic ad naseum. Already a factor of 10 capacity is available from DEC in their new Gigabit ethernet Gigaswitches. The new 12 slot chasis supposedly will run around $9500, and a two port Gigibit ethernet adapter will supposedly retail for around $4500 (there also is a multiport 100 base T card). This is much cheaper than the FDDI Gigaswitch pricing per port. Further, yet another factor of 10 is supposedly around the corner from the company Packet Engines, which has a 10 Gbps ethernet(!) card in development for their gigabit ethernet switch. Both of these developments, coupled with the fact that long distance pricing appears to not be dropping much (and therefore limiting the amount of bandwith brought to an exchange), should make the exchanges much more likely to be able to handle to load. +------------------- H U R R I C A N E - E L E C T R I C -------------------+ | Mike Leber Direct Internet Connections Voice 408 282 1540 | | Hurricane Electric Web Hosting & Co-location Fax 408 971 3340 | | mleber@he.net http://www.he.net | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
participants (17)
-
Alan Hannan -
Alec H. Peterson -
Alex Bligh -
Alex Rubenstein -
Avi Freedman -
Craig A. Huegen -
Deepak Jain -
Dorian R. Kim -
J.D. Falk -
Justin W. Newton -
Mike Leber -
Randy Bush -
Richard Irving -
Snowdog -
Steven Schnell -
Vadim Antonov -
Wayne Bouchard