On Wednesday, September 11, 2002, at 07:39 PM, Simon Blake wrote:
+ having a route propagation path which is different to the packet forwarding path, which is a general problem of route servers on non-trivial layer-2 exchange fabrics;
Sure, but that's an equally good arguement for fixing the exchange fabric, since if you're under some kind of partial reachability cloud, then you're not getting full value for your connection anyway.
Right. The issue arises when there is a functional layer-2 path from the route-server to your router, but no functional layer-2 path from your router to the next-hop address for particular routes you learn from the route server. In those circumstances you will black-hole traffic across the exchange instead of losing the route and sending the traffic by some other path (which is what would happen if you only learnt routes directly from the other operator's router, with no route server involved). It's a failure mode thing, not a value for money thing.
+ having no contract/support relationship/whatever between operators connected to the route server, which is a general problem of multi-lateral peering.
Sure. We have various contracts available if people want to look at them, but generally, people don't. Funny, that :-).
There is no contract between ISP A and ISP B who receive each others' routes from the route server, though. That's what I was getting at. That's important to some people, and not just for lawyers-run-the-company, my-hair-is-pointy reasons.
I was objecting to the idea that operators who don't use the route servers must be bad or stupid, or be otherwise unworthy of attracting customers, because I don't think that's reasonable; there are arguments for not using them, just as there are arguments *for* using them.
Undoubtedly. I just think the arguements for peering with the route servers are significantly stronger than the arguements for not peering with the route servers, but then I'm biased :-).
I am not anti-route-server, on APE or WIX or elsewhere; I just don't think they have universal application. I have set up networks that use the APE route server, and I have also helped set policy in other networks which involved deliberately not connecting to the route server. I ordered the ASNs for the APE and WIX route servers, back in the day. I wouldn't have necessarily bothered if I thought they were a bad idea :) Joe - To unsubscribe from nznog, send email to majordomo(a)list.waikato.ac.nz where the body of your message reads: unsubscribe nznog