One question - which percent of routing table  of any particular router is
REALLY used, say, during 1 week?

I have a strong impression, that answer wil not be more than 20% even in
biggerst backbones, and
will be (more likely) below 1% in the rest of the world. Which makes a hige
space for optimization.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Daniel Senie" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2005 9:50 AM
Subject: Re: Scalability issues in the Internet routing system


>
> At 11:30 AM 10/18/2005, Andre Oppermann wrote:
>
> >I guess it's time to have a look at the actual scalability issues we
> >face in the Internet routing system.  Maybe the area of action becomes
> >a bit more clear with such an assessment.
> >
> >In the current Internet routing system we face two distinctive
scalability
> >issues:
> >
> >1. The number of prefixes*paths in the routing table and interdomain
> >    routing system (BGP)
> >
> >This problem scales with the number of prefixes and available paths
> >to a particlar router/network in addition to constant churn in the
> >reachablility state.  The required capacity for a routers control
> >plane is:
> >
> >  capacity = prefix * path * churnfactor / second
> >
> >I think it is safe, even with projected AS and IP uptake, to assume
> >Moore's law can cope with this.
>
> Moore will keep up reasonably with both the CPU needed to keep BGP
> perking, and with memory requirements for the RIB, as well as other
> non-data-path functions of routers.
>
>
>
> >2. The number of longest match prefixes in the forwarding table
> >
> >This problem scales with the number of prefixes and the number of
> >packets per second the router has to process under full or expected
> >load.  The required capacity for a routers forwarding plane is:
> >
> >  capacity = prefixes * packets / second
> >
> >This one is much harder to cope with as the number of prefixes and
> >the link speeds are rising.  Thus the problem is multiplicative to
> >quadratic.
> >
> >Here I think Moore's law doesn't cope with the increase in projected
> >growth in longest prefix match prefixes and link speed.  Doing longest
> >prefix matches in hardware is relatively complex.  Even more so for
> >the additional bits in IPv6.  Doing perfect matches in hardware is
> >much easier though...
>
> Several items regarding FIB lookup:
>
> 1) The design of the FIB need not be the same as the RIB. There is
> plenty of room for creativity in router design in this space.
> Specifically, the FIB could be dramatically reduced in size via
> aggregation. The number of egress points (real or virtual) and/or
> policies within a router is likely FAR smaller than the total number
> of routes. It's unclear if any significant effort has been put into this.
>
> 2) Nothing says the design of the FIB lookup hardware has to be
> longest match. Other designs are quite possible. Again, some
> creativity in design could go a long way. The end result must match
> that which would be provided by longest-match lookup, but that
> doesn't mean the ASIC/FPGA or general purpose CPUs on the line card
> actually have to implement the mechanism in that fashion.
>
> 3) Don't discount novel uses of commodity components. There are fast
> CPU chips available today that may be appropriate to embed on line
> cards with a bit of firmware, and may be a lot more cost effective
> and sufficiently fast compared to custom ASICs of a few years ago.
> The definition of what's hardware and what's software on line cards
> need not be entirely defined by whether the design is executed
> entirely by a hardware engineer or a software engineer.
>
> Finally, don't discount the value and performance of software-based
> routers. MPLS was first "sold" as a way to deal with core routers not
> handling Gigabit links. The idea was to get the edge routers to take
> over. Present CPU technology, especially with good embedded systems
> software design, is quite capable of performing the functions needed
> for edge routers in many circumstances. It may well make sense to
> consider a mix of router types based on port count and speed at edges
> and/or chassis routers with line cards that are using general purpose
> CPUs for forwarding engines instead of ASICs for lower-volume sites.
> If we actually wind up with the core of most backbones running MPLS
> after all, well, we've got the technology so use it. Inter-AS routers
> for backbones, will likely need to continue to be large, power-hungry
> boxes so that policy can be separately applied on the borders.
>
> I should point out that none of this really is about scalability of
> the routing system of the Internet, it's all about hardware and
> software design to allow the present system to scale. Looking at
> completely different and more scalable routing would require finding
> a better way to do things than the present BGP approach.
>
>

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