Thomas,
On 2011-01-12 02:41, Thomas Narten wrote:
> Sorry to get back to basics, but I have not followed all the Flow
> Label discussions or read all the drafts. I have read
>
> draft-ietf-6man-flow-ecmp-00.txt
> draft-ietf-6man-flow-update-01.txt
>
> pretty carefully and I still don't quite understand what real problem
> we are trying to solve - and thus, whether the proposed changes
> actually help or are a no op.
>
> Is there a document that speaks to this?
I think others have tried to tackle your question by explaining
the perceived need to do some things that we can't do with IPv4.
There are also 3 meta-problems, which is why I keep mentioning
draft-hu-flow-label-cases (in the Independent stream queue).
1. The existence of 20 unused bits in the header is in itself a
problem in some people's eyes - we are wasting bits and energy
storing and transmitting (or compressing) those bits.
2. There are intrinsic ambiguities in RFC 3697 that have prevented
serious use of the flow label, even in the simple use case
defined in draft-carpenter-flow-ecmp.
3. Those ambiguities (and probably other factors) have led to
a variety of quite baroque proposals for using the flow label,
both posted as I-Ds and published in academic format. For gory
details, see draft-hu-flow-label-cases.
Brian
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