If a large network with large amounts of nonportable space, like UUNET, were to fail entirely (financially, or system-wide, e.g.), what would happen to the address space that that network had assigned to its customers? When those customers go elsewhere for access, would the routing tables be flooded with /24's? Alternately, would that space be reclaimed by the registries, and all of those customers be forced to renumber? How long would that take? In a similar vein, how would the DNS act with millions more lame delegations? (And what if all of the root servers were smurfed under at the same time? ;^) If this has been discussed elsewhere, I apologize for the bother, and would appreciate a pointer to that discussion. --- Mark R. Lindsey, mark@datasys.net Internet Engineering, DSS Online, LLC Voice: 912.241.0607; Fax: 912.241.0190 (Wish I were there.)
On Sun, 7 Jun 1998, Mark R. Lindsey wrote:
If a large network with large amounts of nonportable space, like UUNET, were to fail entirely (financially, or system-wide, e.g.), what would happen to the address space that that network had assigned to its customers?
Nothing. First the courts would appoint someone to run the company on behalf of the creditors. Then someone would buy the assets and customers for 10 cents on the dollar. Operational impact will be minimal to nonexistent. Now if an asteroid were to hit Dallas, that would shake things up a little bit more but not dramatically so. -- Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Communications Inc. - E-mail: michael@memra.com http://www.memra.com - *check out the new name & new website*
On Sun, 7 Jun 1998, Michael Dillon wrote:
If a large network with large amounts of nonportable space, like UUNET, were to fail entirely (financially, or system-wide, e.g.), what would happen to the address space that that network had assigned to its customers?
Nothing. First the courts would appoint someone to run the company on behalf of the creditors. Then someone would buy the assets and customers for 10 cents on the dollar. Operational impact will be minimal to
But...what would happen if some hypothetical national or international backbone provider (call it hypo.net) were to litterally run out of funds. If they fall far enough behind that the utility companies kill power to all their POPs, you could see a few days of loss of service before some other backbone buys the pieces and gets things back online. Sure, this would require monumental mismanagement, and is probably about as likely as natural disasters simultaneously destroying all a backbones POPs. BTW....while poking around just a bit at UUNet's web site, I found this: UUNET Technologies, headquartered in Fairfax, VA in the United States, was founded in May 1987. Now a WorldCom, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ: WCOM), UUNET is recognized as the largest Internet Service Provider in the world. Weren't they majorly downplaying the size of UUNet and MCI when the two were going to be owned by Worldcomm?? ------------------------------------------------------------------ Jon Lewis <jlewis@fdt.net> | Spammers will be winnuked or Network Administrator | drawn and quartered...whichever Florida Digital Turnpike | is more convenient. ______http://inorganic5.fdt.net/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key____
Sorry. There is a difference. If some company fail out of the funds, it should be selled to someone who can cover this loss of funds. For example, BIGO.net should buy the values of the hypo.net. It buy the links, the fibers, the buildings. But should it buy the address space? Who can answer it? But I can't buy ISP withouth local registry, domain names, etc etc... And I am not sure if any attorney in the world understand what's is this - domain names, address space, local registry AS numbers. May be it's 90% of hypo.net cost? Who can ever estimate it. And who can allow or disallow it's sale? On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Jon Lewis wrote:
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 01:17:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Jon Lewis <jlewis@inorganic5.fdt.net> To: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Network collapses
On Sun, 7 Jun 1998, Michael Dillon wrote:
If a large network with large amounts of nonportable space, like UUNET, were to fail entirely (financially, or system-wide, e.g.), what would happen to the address space that that network had assigned to its customers?
Nothing. First the courts would appoint someone to run the company on behalf of the creditors. Then someone would buy the assets and customers for 10 cents on the dollar. Operational impact will be minimal to
But...what would happen if some hypothetical national or international backbone provider (call it hypo.net) were to litterally run out of funds. If they fall far enough behind that the utility companies kill power to all their POPs, you could see a few days of loss of service before some other backbone buys the pieces and gets things back online. Sure, this would require monumental mismanagement, and is probably about as likely as natural disasters simultaneously destroying all a backbones POPs.
BTW....while poking around just a bit at UUNet's web site, I found this:
UUNET Technologies, headquartered in Fairfax, VA in the United States, was founded in May 1987. Now a WorldCom, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ: WCOM), UUNET is recognized as the largest Internet Service Provider in the world.
Weren't they majorly downplaying the size of UUNet and MCI when the two were going to be owned by Worldcomm??
------------------------------------------------------------------ Jon Lewis <jlewis@fdt.net> | Spammers will be winnuked or Network Administrator | drawn and quartered...whichever Florida Digital Turnpike | is more convenient. ______http://inorganic5.fdt.net/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key____
Aleksei Roudnev, Network Operations Center, Relcom, Moscow (+7 095) 194-19-95 (Network Operations Center Hot Line),(+7 095) 239-10-10, N 13729 (pager) (+7 095) 196-72-12 (Support), (+7 095) 194-33-28 (Fax)
On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Alex P. Rudnev wrote:
Sorry. There is a difference. If some company fail out of the funds, it should be selled to someone who can cover this loss of funds. For example, BIGO.net should buy the values of the hypo.net. It buy the links, the fibers, the buildings. But should it buy the address space? Who can answer it?
When I said "buy the assets" I meant that they would buy the operating network which includes all the equipment, circuit contracts, buildings and building leases, office furniture, employees, etc. Since the network is still operating, i.e. it is moving packets, they would need to continue using the same IP addresses in order to continue operating the network without disruption.
But I can't buy ISP withouth local registry, domain names, etc etc... And I am not sure if any attorney in the world understand what's is this - domain names, address space, local registry AS numbers.
They will understand enough if the buyer tells them that without the domain names, IP addresses, etc, they cannot sell an operational network but only some used equipment. The added value comes from the fact that it is a complete package. When a company gets into financial trouble, the court appoints a trustee who sells of everything for the best price they can get. The end result is that they want the company to have nothing but debts and money. Then they can divide up the money to the creditors in proportion to how much money is owed and pay out all the debts for some number of cents on the dollar. The trustee is responsible for getting the best price when they sell the assets and I'm sure that lots of the employees and customers of the company will point out that if they keep the network operating without interruption then they will get more money for the assets. -- Michael Dillon - Internet & ISP Consulting Memra Communications Inc. - E-mail: michael@memra.com http://www.memra.com - *check out the new name & new website*
At 1:17 AM -0400 6/8/98, Jon Lewis wrote:
On Sun, 7 Jun 1998, Michael Dillon wrote:
If a large network with large amounts of nonportable space, like UUNET, were to fail entirely (financially, or system-wide, e.g.), what would happen to the address space that that network had assigned to its customers?
Nothing. First the courts would appoint someone to run the company on behalf of the creditors. Then someone would buy the assets and customers for 10 cents on the dollar. Operational impact will be minimal to
But...what would happen if some hypothetical national or international backbone provider (call it hypo.net) were to litterally run out of funds. If they fall far enough behind that the utility companies kill power to all their POPs, you could see a few days of loss of service before some other backbone buys the pieces and gets things back online. Sure, this would require monumental mismanagement, and is probably about as likely as natural disasters simultaneously destroying all a backbones POPs.
One would kind of expect that a large publicly traded company wouldn't just close up; that it would be sold to someone else who would take over operations without interruption. But I suppose it could happen. In which case, I presume the same that happens when little ISP's collapse, only more customers are impacted. I had some clients with BlueSky(?) (I think that was the name) in Boston. That company went belly up, shut down the routers, and closed the doors with no advance notice. They just turned it all off and went home. Nameservice, *everything*. For many of their customers, they were the only contacts in whois, too, so changing things was somewhat hard (faxes on company letterhead), though I think Internic was very responsive getting updates processed quickly. Their customers scrambled to get service from someone else as quickly as possible. It wasn't pretty. I would presume, that in the event of a real closure, the IP space could be reclaimed by the registry that assigned it, and reassigned. Domain names would presumably go away, as soon as their payment expired. --Dean ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Plain Aviation, Inc dean@av8.com LAN/WAN/UNIX/NT/TCPIP/DCE http://www.av8.com We Make IT Fly! (617)242-3091 x246 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nothing. First the courts would appoint someone to run the company on behalf of the creditors. Then someone would buy the assets and customers for 10 cents on the dollar. Operational impact will be minimal to nonexistent.
Effectively this argument is "UUNET are way to big for the market to ever let this happen". Almost certainly true - but this is a real danger sign. It is that sort of situation that actually begs for a crash (as much as anything does) and the more "it just can't happen" it is then the bigger the crash will be. Holds a lot in common with how the dynamics of stock market crashes. Besides - if it won't happen to UUNET it may still happen to someone smaller but still big enough to be of concern ... Manar
participants (6)
-
Alex P. Rudnev -
Dean Anderson -
Jon Lewis -
Manar Hussain -
mark＠vielle.datasys.net -
Michael Dillon