Attempt to summarize Links on the Blink
I would like to try to understand better where this discussion seems to have come to rest. Yesterday the suggestion was made that the major providers add more bandwidth to their backbones. There seemed to be no assertion as to how this could be done. 1. OC-3 is not yet routable on backbones. Is that correct? 2. What is the routing impact of parrallel T-3s? Or the creation of a mesh of T-3s? I have the impression that this is not feasible because it would expand the routing tables unacceptably or because of the questions of how you would load balance among them?? 3. There seems to be some consensus that we will see an increase in the numbers of NAP or MAE like interchange points which could cut down on the traffic that must traverse long haul backbones. *BUT* doesn't each additional interchange point used by all the top level providers mean another new set of global routes crowding router memories? 4. How much help will regional NAPs like Tucson be? Their goal is to keep local traffic local and off long haul backbones. What liklihood is there that these will grow in numbers quickly enough to make a difference? If the majors start showing up at these points does their arrival mean that the problem of crowding memory in their backbone routers will be increased? 5. How much new network usage is already "in the pipe"? AT&T's outsourcing via BBN - also @home turning CATV into serious net users for example? Does anyone have any idea of growth strains that must be met in the next 6 to 9 months to avoid serious problems like the brick wall that has been mentioned? Certainly bandwidth problems have been cyclical and have been solved before. But someone (Paul Vixie?) suggested that we have a whole series of interlinked problems where pushing on one part of the envelope causes difficulties in another part of the envelope. This sounds pretty serious. Is it? What are the fixes? If technology what are they and how far away? Is the Ncube router what is needed? Wht stands in the way of routing OC-3? Routers? Or ATM? (Someone said that packets should be sent over raw sonet. What stands in the way of doing that? I'd be very interested in further discussion of this in public or private. ******************************************************************** Gordon Cook, Editor & Publisher Subscript.: Individ-ascii $85 The COOK Report on Internet Non Profit. $150 431 Greenway Ave, Ewing, NJ 08618 Small Corp & Gov't $200 (609) 882-2572 Corporate $350 Internet: cook@cookreport.com Corporate. Site Lic $650 Newly expanded COOK Report Web Pages http://pobox.com/cook/ ********************************************************************
I would like to try to understand better where this discussion seems to have come to rest. Yesterday the suggestion was made that the major providers add more bandwidth to their backbones. There seemed to be no assertion as to how this could be done.
1. OC-3 is not yet routable on backbones. Is that correct?
Well, I was told that the Cisco AIP card can talk point-to-point to another AIP card at OC-3 speed using either HDLC or PPP.
2. What is the routing impact of parrallel T-3s? Or the creation of a mesh of T-3s? I have the impression that this is not feasible because it would expand the routing tables unacceptably or because of the questions of how you would load balance among them??
If data can be routed on parallel T3s on a per-connection basis so that there isn't a scrambling of ordering of packets per connection, then some benefit is achived, though no single application or site can use more than a T3 of bandwidth.
3. There seems to be some consensus that we will see an increase in the numbers of NAP or MAE like interchange points which could cut down on the traffic that must traverse long haul backbones. *BUT* doesn't each additional interchange point used by all the top level providers mean another new set of global routes crowding router memories?
It depends. If routing decisions are made locally and the routes heard at smaller or private exchange points by NSP x are not distributed to NSP x's larger peering/route-decision routers, then possibly no. That would mean only hearing routes at private exchange points that were also heard elsewhere (at a major peering point).
4. How much help will regional NAPs like Tucson be? Their goal is to keep local traffic local and off long haul backbones. What liklihood is there that these will grow in numbers quickly enough to make a difference? If the majors start showing up at these points does their arrival mean that the problem of crowding memory in their backbone routers will be increased?
See above. Avi
On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, Gordon Cook wrote:
This sounds pretty serious. Is it?
Yes
What are the fixes? If technology what are they and how far away? Is the Ncube router what is needed? Wht stands in the way of routing OC-3? Routers? Or ATM? (Someone said that packets should be sent over raw sonet. What stands in the way of doing that?
I'd be very interested in further discussion of this in public or private.
Public, public. Nathan Stratton CEO, NetRail, Inc. Your Gateway to the World! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phone (703)524-4800 NetRail, Inc. Fax (703)534-5033 2007 N. 15 St. Suite 5 Email sales@netrail.net Arlington, Va. 22201 WWW http://www.netrail.net/ Access: (703) 524-4802 guest ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
participants (3)
-
Avi Freedman -
Gordon Cook -
Nathan Stratton