When I presented the near-unique stuff in IETF50 yesterday, Deering stated
from the mike that a site is a location in space (geographical region,
whatever...I don't remember Steve's exact wording). This had me totally
baffled---and it isn't fun to be baffled in front of a couple hundred
people.
It had me baffled because it doesn't make a lot of sense (it begs certain
nonsensical questions like, how big can it be (in square meters), if you
have five routers, one each in New York, Maimi, Chicago, LA, and San
Francisco, all connected by dedicated links, with only a single ISP
connection point, is this a site, or is it too big or too sparse to be
considered a site, etc. etc.)?
Given that this statement came from somebody as authoritative as Steve, and
that nobody disagreed with it, I naturally assumed that I must have hastily
glossed over some important piece of text somewhere, and felt embarrased for
apparently not having done my homework and for having such a fundamental
mis-understanding of IPv6 (and it isn't fun to be embarrased in front of a
couple hundred people).
So I started doing some homework. There is nothing about sites in 2460.
There is nothing that defines sites in draft-ietf-ipngwg-addr-arch-v3-03.txt
(though it talks a lot about sites). draft-ietf-ipngwg-site-prefixes-05.txt
has a section called "What is a Site?". This section starts by saying that
it "does not attempt to define the concept of a site", but then goes on to
say "A site is an administratively controlled piece of topology that is well
connected". This is much closer to what I was thinking (though I probably
would have defined it as a connected piece of topology whereby SLA
assignment is coordinated or some such thing). Erik's definition in any
event clearly has nothing to do with geography.
I could continue to wade through IPv6 specs to find the definition of site.
But at this point I don't think the onus is on me to do so. Rather Steve I
think the burden is on you to point me to this illusive piece of text that
defines what a site is.
Thanks,
PF
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