Re: new IPv6 policy draft - real soon now

Hear - Hear!!!   I don't recall Daniel attending the v6 working group meeting
with ARIN in Atlanta this week.  Notwithstanding, he very succinctly summarized
the WG discussion, concerns/issues, raised by ISP representatives and their
companies who make the tremendous investment in network infrastructure to ensure
worldclass reliable and survivable networks.  The overall network infrastructure
cost to support the routed network, Internet-based, products and services
requires operators/carriers to be (to use Randy's term) "NAZI" like filter
freaks.  Add fraud, intrusion, and erroneous advertisements, the cost go up
exponentially.  Fortunately the economics still justify the investment.

...Ed





Daniel Karrenberg <Daniel.Karrenberg@localhost on 04/15/99 11:21:47 AM

To:   Bob Fink fink@localhost
cc:   Brian E Carpenter brian@localhost, David Kessens
      david@localhost, Philip Smith pfs@localhost, 6bone@localhost,
      ipv6-wg@localhost, Edward M. Mayhugh/MCLEOD@localhost, Kim Hubbard
      kimh@localhost, Paul Wilson pwilson@localhost, Mirjam Kuhne
      mir@localhost, Bob Hinden hinden@localhost, Steve Deering
      deering@localhost, Tony Hain tonyhain@localhost, Alain Durand
      <Alain.Durand@localhost
Subject:  Re: new IPv6 policy draft - real soon now





  > Bob Fink fink@localhost writes:
  > It is a built in discriminator for the future.

Yes it is.  I have been quite frank about this at the IETF.  Look at it
another way:

Engineers agree that currently the one major concern when making adress
space distribution policy is routing system complexity.  This is
governed by topology and the number of prefixes.  Address space
distribution policy can only address the number of prefixes.  Experience
shows that policies cannot ultimately establish an upper bound on the
number of prefixes routed.  Even worse, the number to design to is a
moving target about which the IETF cannot even agree at a particular
instant in time, let alone make predictions for the future.

When a routing system problem is going to hit, providers will have to
make a choice about which prefixes to drop.  They will make that choice
no matter what.  They can base that choice on any consideration.  We
hope that the consideration will be somewhat rational and hopefully
somewhat consistent across ISPs if it is based on a rational measure.
The prefix length (amount of justified address space) is established by
a policy established by community consensus and implemented by neutral
and impartial entities, the registries.  It is such a rational measure.
If such a rational measure is not available there is a lot of room for
instability and lots more room for arbitrary decisions.

There are other desirable properties of the proposed policy, such as
effective discouragement of stockpiling, etc for which I have not seen
workable alternatives.  But this is besides the point being discussed.

Now Bob raises the concern that this measure could be used by the big
guys to squeeze the smal ones even *without* a routing problem existing.
I cannot see how this concern can be relevant because the big guys, or
anyone else, can do this at *any* time based on *any* criteria.  It is
even being done now, i.e.  small ones have to *pay* bigger ones to be
routed.

I'd be much more worried about the case where a routing problem exists
but no rational descriminator and the routing problem will provide a
perfect exuse for anyone to make arbitrary decisions.  This is when the
small guys will get squeezed.  This is when it is an enourmous help if
you can point to a rational and neutral measure.

Daniel

PS: I do not understand you presenting this as a hidden agenda.  It has
been out in the open and I have explained this to you personally during
the last IETF.