Re: In search of perfection (was Re: Getting a "portable" /19 or /20)

[Sean Donelan <sean () donelan com>]

On Wed, 11 April 2001, Dave Crocker wrote:
> Early IPv6 work explored use of geography-based addressing, but rejected it 
> essentially because it would require more localized provider 
> interconnections than existed, or else it requires some rather bizarre 
> routing information exchanges.

Network chickens and eggs.  The telephone system has tandems in every
LATA because the network architecture requires it, or the network
architecture developed because there was tandems in every LATA?  International
country codes are assigned by country because there was only a single
PTT in each country, but now there are several companies.

Is the lack of localized provider interconnections an accident of the
Internet architecture or a requirement?  Are other network architectures
really bad, or has the current architecture driven the protocol development
which in turns reinforces the same limitations of the current architecture?

If you assign CIDR blocks by provider, and multi-homing becomes the norm,
things grow worse on the global level.  If you assign CIDR blocks by
geography, and multi-homing becomes the norm, things grow worse on the
local level.  Which is worse for the global network, ugly local problems
or ugly global problems?

We seem to go through the same circle every time.

People built the current network around the current limitations of the
protocol.  If we changed the protocol, perhaps folks could build a different
architecture around its limitations.  If we had an aggregation strategy
which supported aggregation at the region/state/city level, perhaps
network architecture would be built the same way.

> Still, being able to avoid the tyranical capture effect imposed by 
> provider-based addressing, AND getting better route aggregation, sure does 
> make geography-based approaches appealing.
>
> If only someone could work out the technical kinks...

Necessity is the mother of invention?