RE: Next question...

["Craig A. Huegen" <chuegen@cisco.com>]

On Sat, 7 Dec 2002, J. Noel Chiappa wrote:

> As for the difficulty of having hosts do it too, may I point out that the
> average human being seems to be able to deal with getting in a car on one side
> of a continent (well, maybe only in North America and Western Europe where the
> road systems are good) and figuring out a path to a destination on the other
> side. It doesn't take a PhD. Similarly, network routing *shouldn't* need a
> PhD. It does only because of the aforementioned canine refuseness.

This is a simple analogy but doesn't hold water when you look into more
detail.  At risk of making people groan by extending it:

The owner of a fleet of cars may want his drivers to avoid using Saddle
Rd. because he isn't covered by his insurance there, or he may want his
drivers to use less toll roads because he can't afford the $100 tolls for
taking the shorter roads.  Or, the fleet owner might want to force the
drivers to use I-3 because it has pretty flowers along the side and it
boosts morale.

Whatever the reasons, the drivers don't get to make those decisions -- the
fleet owner does.  The fleet owner has to inform the drivers where they're
permitted to operate the vehicle and where they are not -- that is policy.

Under unusual circumstances, the drivers may be given flexibility to take
a path to get his job done.  A good fall-back mechanism takes care of
this.

Enterprise network operators also build and express policy based on the
business parameters surrounding the connectivity, whether latency, cost,
or personal preference.

/cah

---
Craig A. Huegen, Chief Network Architect      C i s c o  S y s t e m s
IT Transport, Network Technology & Design           ||        ||
Cisco Systems, Inc., 400 East Tasman Drive          ||        ||
San Jose, CA  95134, (408) 526-8104                ||||      ||||
email: chuegen@cisco.com       CCIE #2100      ..:||||||:..:||||||:..