[ppml] 2005-1 and/or Multi6

[Daniel Roesen]

On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 11:35:27AM +0100, Michael.Dillon at radianz.com wrote:
> > Can anyone please define "swamp"? What does the collection of PI
> > prefixes differ in compared to the collection of PA aggregate prefixes
> > other than probably prefix length?
> 
> My definition of "swamp" is an IP address range in which
> many LONG prefixes (small blocks) are allocated for us in
> a provider independent (PI) manner with little to no
> possibility of aggregating those prefixes into shorter
> ones.

Which is no difference to the collection of PA aggregates. You can't
aggregate them anymore too.

> In IPv6, this is bad because it means that more bits
> will have to be consumed by the global routing table,
> communicated in BGP announcements, and processed in
> routing calculations. 

I don't think this assertion is accurate. Protocols carry IP addresses
in fixed-length fields. An IPv6 prefix will always take 128 bits.

Please don't go back to pre-CIDR, really.

> I do not believe that we will see the same improvements
> in memory capacity, processor power, and circuit
> capacity that we saw in IPv4's heyday because we are
> now approaching real physical limits to such improvement.

Oh? Any scientific reference to that?

I can remember modem manufacturers saying that when 2400bps modems
were state of the art.

> At the same time, IPv6 increases the average prefix length
> even if /32 is the longest prefix to be announced.

Who cares?

> We have to allocate PI addresses to these so-called 
> end-sites because to do otherwise is restraint of trade.

Agreed.

> However, it is unwise and imprudent to offer them /48
> prefixes which are highly wasteful of global router capacity
> when we could give them shorter /32 prefixes.

That makes no sense. I don't see any wastage of "global router
capacity". Prefix length doesn't matter to CIDR routers, unless
they contain ill-advised optimizations. The only optimization I
could accept is on the /64 boundary.

> P.S. I say "so-called" end sites because I believe that it
> is untrue to view the Internet as something which has a center
> and edges where the edges are populated by end-sites. Those
> so-called end-sites are often internetworks in their own right.

I couldn't agree more.


Best regards,
Daniel

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