Don't like what Cogent is doing but just to bring this back to reality Matthew 
and others out there... What content do you think Google has or any other big 
content provider that is IPV6 only or gives an IPV6 only response to a query 
from Cogent that would not work via normal IPV4 routes and IP's.. Till we have 
exclusive content on IPV6 or it is a shorter, faster, bigger, better path then 
we are still fighting this uphill battle to get more adoption of IPV6 and it 
will not matter to the majority of Cogent customers that they can't get full 
IPV6 routes and connections from Cogent.

Robert Jacobs | Network Architect Director

Direct:  832-615-7742
Main:   832-615-8000
Fax:    713-510-1650

5959 Corporate Dr. Suite 3300; Houston, TX 77036



 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: NANOG [mailto:nanog-boun...@nanog.org] On Behalf Of Matthew D. Hardeman
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2016 4:54 PM
To: Mark Andrews <ma...@isc.org>
Cc: North American Network Operators' Group <nanog@nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Cogent - Google - HE Fun

Mark,

I certainly agree that intentional harm of a purely malicious nature is to be 
discouraged.

What I proposed, as an alternative to some of the more extreme mechanisms being 
discussed, is a mechanism whereby IPv6 _customers_ of Cogent transit 
services--and who also receive IPv6 transit from at least one other 
relationship--can modify their IPv6 advertisements to Cogent such that they 
utilize that transit link with Cogent for the one thing you can reliably count 
on it for in the IPv6 world: reaching other Cogent IPv6 customers, especially 
the single-homed ones.

In essence, adding BGP community “174:3000” to your IPv6 advertisements to 
Cogent instructs Cogent that this route should only be advertised internal to 
Cogent and to Cogent’s customers.  It should not be announced to peers.  
Combining that with prepends of your own AS in the IPv6 advertisements to 
Cogent also reduces traffic from other multi-homed Cogent IPv6 customers.  In 
any event, if enough Cogent customers do this, it does greatly reduce the 
amount of traffic that Cogent gets to transit from their various IPv6 peers 
while still avoiding harm to innocent end-users (or for that matter, to guilty 
end users).

The mechanism I proposed has numerous benefits:

1.  It utilizes only a mechanism created by Cogent and documented for use by 
Cogent transit customers to achieve routing policy that benefits IPv6 customers 
of Cogent.
2.  It causes no harm to single-homed Cogent customers.
3.  It causes no direct harm to Cogent.  The sole indirect harm that it might 
bring upon Cogent if adopted en-masse would be to significantly drop the amount 
of traffic crossing Cogent’s SFI peerings on IPv6, which I acknowledge may have 
consequences for Cogent.  If it did have such consequences, it’s Cogent’s game 
and Cogent’s rules.  They could change it any time.  If it indirectly harms 
Cogent by lowering overall traffic volume on paid multi-homed customer transit 
connections, Cogent could easily remedy that by becoming an IPv6 network that 
one would want to exchange IPv6 transit traffic with rather than being an IPv6 
network that one begrudgingly pays because one does business with others who 
are Cogent single-homed.

I do reiterate, however, that I would strongly discourage any kind of routing 
tricks that leave the innocent Cogent customers out in the cold.  That hurts 
those Cogent customers as well as you and/or your own customers and users.  
Please, someone, think of the end-users here.

My advice to Cogent would be to remember something real simple:  When Big Boss 
#1 at RandomCorp has no trouble reaching Google services all night every night 
at home and then he comes to work and his office Internet does everything but 
Google….  What he’ll remember is “Charter works with Google, whoever we’re 
using at the office doesn’t.  Let’s switch.”  It’s shocking to me that an ISP 
with a retail segment thinks you can survive if Google doesn’t work, no matter 
what Google did to ensure it played out that way.  Frankly, Google could scream 
that they cut Cogent off because they didn’t like Cogent’s face and no one at 
retail would care.  They just want their Gmail back.  If Google wanted to force 
the issue faster, they could just stop the IPv4 transit routes to Cogent.  I 
think they’re taking a more balanced and conservative approach though.

Thanks,

Matt Hardeman

> On Mar 10, 2016, at 4:29 PM, Mark Andrews <ma...@isc.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> I don't think anyone should be colluding to hurt Cogent or anyone
> else for that matter and this thread appears to be heading in this
> direction.
> 
> Mark
> -- 
> Mark Andrews, ISC
> 1 Seymour St., Dundas Valley, NSW 2117, Australia
> PHONE: +61 2 9871 4742                 INTERNET: ma...@isc.org

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