Re: [RRG] Thoughts on the RRG/Routing Space Problem

[Robin Whittle <rw@firstpr.com.au>]

Hi Russ,

I don't think of my Ivip ITR-ETR proposal as a locator-ID separation
protocol, though it could be viewed that way.  Nor does this
proposal rely much on a hard separation between ISPs and end-users.

The idea is that Ivip will provide some areas of the address space
with new capabilities, and certain restrictions.

Using terminology from http://psg.com/lists/rrg/2007/msg00533.html,
a BGP advertised prefix controlled by Ivip is a "Mapped Address
Block" (MAB) which can be split into any number of "micronets".

Packets addressed to each micronet are sent to a particular ETR,
anywhere in the world, and (ideally) this mapping will be changeable
with little cost, within a few seconds, to any other ETR.

Micronet address space can't be used for certain things:

  ETRs
  Anything to do with the Ivip infrastructure
  Root and probably TLD nameservers
  BGP routers

So micronet space is not suitable for the primary address space of
an ISP.

However, an ISP would be able to place its public-facing web servers
on micronet addresses.  I am not sure why the ISP would want to, but
there may be reasons.

Also, there are certain restrictions on where ITRs and ETRs can be
located, such as not behind NAT.

Administratively, people who use micronets have a different
arrangement and set of dependencies than they would if they had PI
space today.  The primary difference is that they don't need BGP
expertise, to be a member of an RIR etc. - so it would be much less
expensive.  Also, micronets can be assigned to different end users
without any impact on BGP - saving a great deal of administrative
costs and inertia.  In some ways, it would be like getting PA space
from an ISP, but the space would be usable via any ISP which
provides an ETR.  More on this in:

  http://psg.com/lists/rrg/2007/msg00536.html

The main benefit is that micronets can be of any size, from 1 IP
address to any number of them - compared to the effective 256
address granularity of the current and likely future IPv4 BGP system.

Ivip enables a much finer, faster, cheaper, slicing and dicing of
address space - including (ideally) for mobility with generally
optimal path lengths - without requiring more BGP advertised
prefixes (other than one for every MAB) and without involving the
BPG system in any changes to advertised prefixes when the micronets
are mapped somewhere different.

This obviously has lots of uses - including enabling millions of
end-user networks to be multihomed with their own genuinely portable
address space.

One benefit is that IPv4 address space will be able to be more
efficiently used, in terms of number of actually used addresses and
in terms of a greater number of separate multihomed end-user networks.

I think the other proposals - LISP, eFIT-APT and TRRP - can in
principle be used in the same way.  They may be presented in a more
mathematically defined way, such as "Locator ID Separation".  These
other proposals are not aimed so much at better address utilisation,
but I think they could all be used to achieve this.

Generally, micronets are useful for an "end-user" - someone who
wants Internet access but doesn't sell Internet access to others in
a big way.  As you write, many organisations known as ISPs also do
things which do not involve selling Internet access - so they may
find micronets useful for some of those activities.


  - Robin        http://www.firstpr.com.au/ip/ivip/


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