Re: comments on requirements-05

[Joe Abley <jabley@isc.org>]

On Friday, May 9, 2003, at 13:11 Canada/Eastern, Iljitsch van Beijnum 
wrote:

> This is completely confusing. It seems we lack a definition for 
> "site", and as a non-native speaker I might be missing something, but 
> the word "site" makes me think along the lines of a building site: a 
> single location. Transit providers tend to operate networks that span 
> more than a single location.
The document includes a definition for "site":

   A "site" is an entity autonomously operating a network using IP and,
   in particular, determining the addressing plan and routing policy for
   that network. This definition is intended to be equivalent to
   "enterprise" as defined in [2].

> If we're going to change wording, let's do away with "site" and 
> replace it with "AS". This one is well-defined and used extensively in 
> discussions about interdomain routing.
The original reason for not using "AS" was that we did not want to 
presuppose a routing solution to the problem (e.g. to the exclusion of 
solutions which involve address overloading on the edge).

> >    which directly provides
> >    connectivity to the Internet to one or more external sites.
> Or "the rest of the world" for short. I don't think we should consider 
> the plight of those selling or buying partial transit as it leads to 
> endless
> problems with multi-address solutions.
>
> And it doesn't have to be directly.
>
> >    A transit provider's site is directly connected to the sites for
> >    which it provides transit.
> Nonsense.
As I seem to be mentioning in every single message on this subject, the 
reason for the definitions being there at all is that different people 
have different ideas about what "transit provider" means.

At home, I buy transit from an ISP in Ontario called Sentex. They buy 
transit from Telus. According to some understandings of "transit 
provider", Sentex is a transit provider of Joe Abley, but Telus is not, 
since Telus have no direct provider relationship with Joe Abley.

According to other definitions, Telus and Sentex are both transit 
providers of Joe Abley.

To clear up this ambiguity, the document was modified to include 
definitions. To be clear, the purpose of the document is not to define 
the term "transit provider": the purpose is to describe a set of 
criteria which might be viewed as useful capabilities for a multihoming 
strategy. If the set of definitions in the document are (a) not 
completely off the wall and (b) cover the terms used in the document, 
then we are finished talking about definitions.

> >    A "direct Internet services provider" (ISP) provides a physical 
> > connection
> >    and Internet connectivity to the site.  The connectivity extends 
> > beyond
> >    the ISP's own network.
> Ok, now define the internet...
It's the "largest equivalence class in the reflexive transitive 
symmetric closure of the relationship "can be reached by an IP packet 
from" [Seth Breidbart]

> Logical connections work too.
Let's not introduce new exciting vague terminology for the sake of it.


Joe