[ppml] alternative realities (was PIv6 for legacy holders (/w RSA + efficient use))

[John Curran]

At 6:52 PM -1000 7/31/07, Randy Bush wrote:
>and we have arin board members telling us the end of the world is neigh
>and/or that we should bet on techno-idealism as opposed to greed and
>next quarter's net.

You've got lots of folks pointing out that having an "anything goes"
policy with respect to address reassignment might be bad - the use
of the word "collapse" in this context isn't new:

RFC 2008: "Hierarchical routing requires that aggregation boundaries
for the addressing information be formed along some hierarchy. As a
result, many exceptions will be injected into the routing system in the
future, besides those exceptions that currently exist. Each exception
added to the routing system deters the scalability of the routing system.
The exact number of exceptions that can be tolerated is dependent on
the technology used to support routing. Unbridled growth in the number
of such exceptions will cause the routing system to collapse."

Historically, the guidance to the RIR's has been to consider the potential
impact of various allocation policies on the routing infrastructure.  This
includes the potential impact of assignment transfers, specifically those
that arise independent of the transfer of network infrastructure.

>things are going to get uglier.  but they will be a continuous
>processes.  they'll be slow enough we can even see them, talk about
>them, and make decisions based on our perceptions.  almost as if this
>was a business.

Slow continuous processes coming out of a discontinuous event which
impacts thousands of independent (but linked via routing) entities, all
of whom try to cooperate but benefit more if they maximize their own
payoff?  (insert drc wikipedia reference here ;-)

>but at no time will growth be inhibited.  as we all know, the internet
>routes around blockage.  and growth will find the currently least cost
>path.  that's life in the big city. 

Your slides highlight the pain that moving to IPv6 is... the essence of
much of the debate is whether the community is better served by
recognizing and/or encouraging a "market" in IPv4 during that long
transition period.

I'm guessing that yourself (and drc) see such as desirable or inevitable,
given normal business pressure for the quarterly results.   The rub is
that some of us see those same pressures, in presence of said "market"
and due to the extensively referenced Prinsoner's Dilemma wr.t. routing
behavior, yielding an explosive situation which doesn't have an obvious
equilibrium point.

If the community decides that we should abandon the RFC 2008 & 2050
guidance with respect to hierarchical assignment and reassignment and
rely upon the ISP community to "do the right thing", then that's obviously
how we'll proceed.  It certainly creates some interesting short-term options
for continued growth.

/John

>and i wanna nominate drc for arin board!  (yes, i know)

p.s.  drc was a great board member (but we lost him to a "higher" calling :-) )