policy support [was Re: load-balancing]

[Brian E Carpenter <brian@hursley.ibm.com>]

What this seems to say is that multi-homing needs policy support
i.e. one you get more than one connection simultaneously up,
you need a policy mechanism for route selection. And the policy
might have traffic balancing, QOS, and other components (though
how you can tell an Internet2 packet from an ordinary one is
a puzzle that hasn't yet been solved other than with static routes.)

   Brain

Steve Deering wrote:
> 
> At 12:31 PM -0800 2/15/01, Randy Bush wrote:
> >but 'balancing' is exactly what the customer wants.
> 
> I assume that's what *some* (perhaps even most) customers want.  But
> not all customers.  For example, the universities that are connected
> to a research-and-education network (e.g., one of the Internet 2 backbones)
> and a "commodity ISP" have policy reasons (AUPs) for wanting some traffic
> to go one way and some the other; load-balancing is a non-goal for them.
> (In fact, in that scenario, there's often a big difference in the size of
> the two pipes, and a 50/50 split of traffic is the last thing they want.)
> 
> Or are you saying you think that only load-balancing multi-homing
> should be in-scope for this trying-to-be-WG?
> 
> Steve