It seems to me that if there is going to be a change in the way that we look at addresses, routing, and NAT, it would be in everyone's interest if we were able to build border NAT devices that besides telling an incoming packet where to go, was also able to tell it what route to take through the internal network. Not just relying on the internal routing data, but also making decisions based on the real-time performance inside the network, and the nature of the traffic (TCP vs. UDP, HTTP vs FTP vs TELNET vs MAIL). I know it touches on QOS, but QOS is reactive, this could be proactive. Once the box has to do the work, and look at each packet and address, why not add smarts? And this 'knowledge does *not* have to be passed outside my network, even though it would be a 'good thing'. Rodney Joffe Chief Technology Officer Genuity Inc., a Bechtel company http://www.genuity.net

-----Original Message----- From: Randy Bush [SMTP:randy@psg.com] Sent: Saturday, November 01, 1997 12:55 PM if global name to 'address' resolution is desired, then the directory mechanism protocols, currently dns, need to be translated at address and/or name domain boundaries. randy