RE: network controls are necessary

["Tony Li" <Tony.Li@procket.com>]

Tony,

|   I was not trying to acuse or label anyone. My point was 
|   that we all are
|   bringing viewpoints based on past expierence, and they can cause
|   particular approaches to be declaired 'too complex' without serious
|   study. 


Yes, I'm aware that we all have biases and that rational engineering 
should dominate the conversation.  Thank you for the reminder.  If you
see us straying from the path, please feel free to remind us again.


|   Simplifying does not always mean moving the function into 
|   the network.
|   In fact that approach may make the host job more complex, 
|   because the
|   network has limited knowledge. 


IMHO, the network includes the hosts.  Moving the function into the
routing subsystem may or may not simplify the overall system.  Our job
has to be to weigh the advantages of the alternatives and weight them
properly.  


|   > Our first job is to define an architecture, not a mechanism.  That
|   > architecture will be able to support some policies, not all.  
|   
|   I agree we can't arbitrarily support all policies, but we 
|   appear to be
|   writing off a significant number of them because the mechanisms that
|   would allow them to fit into the target architecture are 
|   too complex. 


That is bound to happen.  There are an infinite set of policies (my packets
should all go through Phoenix, but only on Tuesdays of months with an 'R' in
them) and we will necessarily support fewer of them than we will have to
exclude.

Ergo, we need to decide which ones we need to support.  To do that we need
to understand which ones are going to have the biggest impact and the cost
for supporting them.  Some policies are easy to support, but no one will use
them.  No point there.  Other policies would be very helpful, but would
require us to carry a great deal of information.  Those we might find to be
too expensive.  We need to make the cost/benefit analysis and make the call(s).

   
|   Yes we have to choose. My concern is that the vocal 
|   participants are not
|   providing a balanced perspective on the cost / benefit 
|   tradeoffs. Again,
|   this is not to fault anyone, just raise awareness that we need more
|   participation from multi-homed host administrators.


Not to oppose that, but I think that Craig has been a fine representative.  More
are certainly welcome.

Tony