Re: The term multihoming

[Rick Summerhill <rrsum@greatplains.net>]

On Wed, 23 Oct 2002, Michael H. Lambert wrote:

> > Careful with the terminology...
> >
> > In multihoming, two or more network connections to the same connectivity
> > provider is a trivial case we don't have to worry about.  I believe this
> > is what most academia do (we too).
>
> Understood.  On one side we have four universities and a few other
> entities.  On the other, three commodity providers and two R&E networks.
> I'd call that multihoming.
>
> We currently have a PA allocation from one of the R&E networks; if we were
> to ask, we could receive addresses from the other R&E network and,
> probably, one of the commodity providers.  We haven't asked, because
> multiple PA addresses on an interface would be problematic in our
> environment.

Let me chime in with an example from academia that is going to hit
is very soon if v6 is to take off.

Like Michael, I run a gigapop connected to research backbones and
multiple commodity providers.  Call my network A, and include in
that network a potential for 5 (PA) prefixes.

Below me, sits several state networks.  They connect to me, would
get our prefixes and they might also have their own commodity
connections, almost always multiple in number.  Call that network
B, and add another 2 prefixes.

Below that state network, sits a university.  They may have only
one connection to the state network, but they may have to deal with
the above prefixes.  They may also feel the necessity to have their
own commodity connection, or they may indeed connect to a specialized
research network, taking in another set of prefixes.  Call that
network C.

Below C, sits an extension office D out in a remote county that
connects to the university for research purposes, but they also has
as part of their mission serving the rural community.  They may
want to have redundancy in their connectivity, to simply serve their
county needs.  This simple site has multiple computers and other
research gathering devices in their offices and field equipment, and
therefore will most likely utilize a /48.

Finally, this is not way off in the future.  As Michael indicates,
we run a native v6 connection to a research backbone at this time and
want to connect to our commodity providers via v6 also.  If v6 is to
propagate, this issue must be dealt with.

--Rick

--
Rick Summerhill                          Executive Director, GPN
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