Re: [RRG] Concerns about the RRG process ... & how not to design an airliner

["William Herrin" <bill@herrin.us>]

On Sun, Mar 23, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Robin Whittle <rw@firstpr.com.au> wrote:
>                   So the questions the RRG is trying to answer
>                   often need to be different for each different
>                   practical solution - yet we haven't chosen
>                   any one such solution yet.

Hey Robin,

We need a comprehensive set of questions that are reasonable across
the entire solution tree so that we can do an apples-to-apples
comparison of the various proposals. They all solve the same core
problem (the current BGP-based DFZ is insufficiently scalable) and
they all have to run on equipment that we can cost-effectively build
so there should be a reasonable set of universal questions.

To be worth replacing BGP, we'll have to support some system-wide peak
number of maps and some system-wide peak update rate. The minimums for
those numbers are the same regardless of our approach. They're a value
question versus BGP and today's BGP is exactly the same regardless of
our approaches.

To avoid Randy Bush's $10M routers, there is some peak number of FIB
entries and some peak update rate that a single device within the
system can be expected to handle. These maximums are constrained by
the hardware regardless of our approach.

On the other hand, we should avoid questions like "What's the peak
permissible update rate system-wide?" That assumes a link between
individual device's capability and the system-wide update rate when
such a link only exists for some of the approaches we've imagined.


>Exploration of the difficulties of this process
>by way of an RRG-like Airliner Research Group
>and its task of designing an airliner from scratch
>- when most of the group are members of design
>teams with completely different concrete proposals
>for a new airliner.

Sheer genius. I laughed so hard I cried. Sprung dance floors indeed. :)

Regards,
Bill Herrin


-- 
William D. Herrin herrin@dirtside.com bill@herrin.us
3005 Crane Dr. Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004

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