Re: Two-octet bandwidth values

[Bora Akyol <akyol@pluris.com>]

On Sunday, March 25, 2001, at 08:05 PM, Kireeti Kompella wrote:

> Let's get the ball rolling.  Please send questions and comments to the
> list.  Here are mine:
>
> Questions to vendors:
> 1) Is floating point arithmetic a burdensome requirement?  Is having
>    a new library of functions for the two-octet "floating point"
>    representation a burdensome requirement?
>

I don't see what exactly is wrong with the present approach, we have no 
problem working with the present TE TLVs and no problems with floating 
point.

> 2) Is halving the size of the bandwidth TLVs a big win (keep in mind
>    that more bandwidth TLVs are being proposed)?
>    (a) for ISIS?
>    (b) for OSPF?
>    (c) if the answers for ISIS and OSPF differ, is it acceptable to
>        have different formats for the two protocols?
>

I think it is unacceptable to have OSPF and ISIS TE TLVs differ. I think 
halving the size of the bandwidth TLVs is not very useful. It causes yet 
another "transition" problem just as people are getting used to the 
present scheme.


> Questions to vendors & carriers:
> 1) Is 10 bits of dynamic range (0.1% accuracy) good enough?
>
This depends a lot on the bandwidth, on an OC768c this will translate to 
a whopping 400 Mbps, which to me is inadequate.  Our routers also 
support bundled links which we call "Bonds" that can achieve bandwidths 
much larger than 40 Gbps. So my answer to 10 bits of dynamic range is NO.

> 2) Are you in favor of this draft, or against?
>

Seems like we have more important stuff to focus on then this particular 
topic.

Bora