Lixia Zhang wrote:
> 
> On Nov 30, 2008, at 10:57 PM, Michael Meisel wrote:
> 
>> Hi all, I've just been catching up, and I've noticed the reappearance of
>> a common theme that I think warrants discussion directly -- what
>> difference we should make, how to do it, and if it's even possible. Here
>> are my thoughts on the issue, many pieces of which have been said by
>> others before me (Tony, Lixia, Christian, Noel, Dave Conrad, and Brian,
>> to name a few).
> 
> thanks for the credit! :)
> though it seems to be quite a distance between what's said this msg and
> my thought...
> 
> Let me just first focus on your 3 principles below
> 
>> There are many tiny changes happening constantly in the Internet on a
>> small scale. These changes have the potential to add up to a radically
>> different picture sometime down the road, as we've seen happen with NAT.
>> So, to have any influence on the network, we should be thinking about
>> how we can tweak the small changes to push things in a good direction.
>>
>> I believe this means a focus on three principles:
>>
>> (1) The network will always be heterogeneous
> 
> agree in principle.
> but some clarification here would help more: exactly along what/which
> dimensions of heterogeneity are you referring to here?
> given this msg is about making changes, I interpreted "heterogeneous"
> here as measured by different interest, different reactions to any
> proposed changes.

Right, that's what I meant by it.

>> (2) Any large change will only happen as the aggregate result of many,
>> many tiny changes at individual networks and hosts
> 
> I am not clear what is the definition of tiny and large here: what are
> you measuring?

An example of a tiny change would be something like a tweak to a router
configuration, or an OS upgrade on a single end host. An example of a
large change would be moving the whole network to IPv6.

>> (3) It's not up to us (or any central authority) which tiny changes
>> get made
> 
> if you are saying the Internet has no boss, then I agree.
> But I do believe that it is our job to understand what is driving the
> trend, so that we figure out how best to influence or facilitate the
> changes.

Right, I think we're in agreement here, we just stated it a bit
differently -- when you say influencing and facilitating changes, I
think you mean what I meant when I said developing and promoting new tools.

> and just one more thing:
> 
>> (1) and (2) imply that we should push forward with some
>> host-based scheme that separates the host's identifier from its routable
>> address.
> 
> not exactly sure what you meant by "host's identifier" here (e.g. LISP
> calls hosts' PI addresses as identifiers, and separate that out of
> global routing--is that what you meant here?)

No, I meant we should push forward with some scheme that introduces
another layer of indirection in the host stack. I wasn't using
"identifier" in the LISP sense of the word.

-Michael

>> This is orthogonal to ISP-based solutions, and it is bound to
>> be just what *someone* needs, and could make some difference in the size
>> of the routing table.
> 
> TO make a difference in routing table size: it may only take the action
> of a single or small number of parties to increase the routing table
> size; but to remove a prefix from the existing routing table requires
> every party, not just some hosts, knowing how to reach that prefix thru
> some new way.
> 
> Lixia
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