Re: requirements draft revision

[Ben Black <ben@layer8.net>]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2001 at 09:38:50AM -0700, Tony Hain wrote:
> Joe Abley wrote:
> > Someone two hops away with whom you don't have a direct
> > relationship is not a transit provider, even though they
> > might carry your traffic.
> 
> Somehow I don't think this is a globally recognized definition of the term
> 'transit provider'. It also unnecessarily focuses the discussion on one tiny

This is absolutely the globally recognized definition.  What you might be
confusing is the concept of a transit provider with a transit network.  A
transit network is one which carries traffic which is neither originated
from nor destined to addresses within itself.  A transit provider is one
which maintains peering agreements with other providers to give access
from its customers to the customers of those providers.  Note that some
providers will use other providers for transit for a variety of reasons.

Two transit providers exchanging customer traffic does not mean they are
using each other "for transit", in the meaning used from a customer's
perspective, though they are certainly acting as transit networks.

> 
> The real requirement is that 'any enterprise is able to acquire services
> from an arbitrary set of providers, and have a mechanism to keep the routing
> straight between those providers such that traffic between the enterprise
> and customers of any one provider will not transit another provider'.
> 

The real requirement is that customers be able to control, through 
whatever mechanism or mechanisms, the flow of traffic.  Your statement
above is one point in that space, but there are many others in use
everyday on the Internet.


Ben

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