[address-policy-wg] Source of routing table growth

On 30 June 2011 09:22, Shane Kerr <shane at time-travellers.org> wrote:

> Regarding the implications on policy... we seem to have a situation
> where the people for and against increased IPv6 PI seem to think that
> the other side must prove their position somehow. These ideas are all
> based on potential future impact, and historically predictions about the
> future have been very difficult.
>
> Since we are talking about theories about future impact, we're kind of
> like economists: the only real way to test a theory is to implement it
> and see what happens. I will note that *not* changing the policy is also
> implementing a policy, so no matter what we do, we're running an
> experiment based on half-baked theories of how the Internet works. More
> research will certainly inform the discussion and possibly lead to
> better policies, but policies will never be based on perfect
> understanding.

Okay let me put the case from this side, the number of 70k was based
on quoted figure of current v4 PI assignments and the assumption
(which I think is only logical) that each one of those assignments
will want a v6 assignment at some point soon. This does not account
for any growth in the desire for PI space that might appear based on
people deciding that PI would a "better route" for their network
design.

The current global routing table for IPv6 is 5-6k (give or take)
implementing this policy (as currently structured) would see that grow
to around 20k (just with v4 -> v6 requirements) in a vert short space
of time, now I don't know about your network but slow gradual growth
is okay as you can budget for replacing and upgrading a normal cycle.
A sudden spike like this is likely to cause two things to happen,
first it'll trip over a raft of memory bugs that vendors haven't found
yet because they didn't think the v6 table would grow so quickly and
secondly it'll put those people with less available capital off
deploying v6 as their hardware won't be up to scratch.

I am happy to be convinced that I'm wrong and this won't be a problem
*but* I'm still not convinced that this change is the best approach to
solving "the problem" maybe the authors could pitch in with their
problem statement so we can see what the actual problem is in the
first place.

J
-- 

James Blessing
07989 039 476