Re: [RRG] Geographic aggregation-based routing is at odds with reality

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

Hi Tony,

I have some understanding of what you wrote:

> The issue with this approach is again one of cooperation: those
> folks performing the maintenance of the aggregation are NOT those
> that benefit from it.  The up side is that if everyone were
> cooperative (you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours), then
> mutual aggregation would distribute both the costs AND the
> benefits.  If providers could be enticed to enter into such a 
> multilateral (and informal!) agreement, we could make significant
> progress.

but I don't see how these approaches are going to cause a new system
to be adopted to the very high degree we need in order to solve the
routing scaling problem.

Whether it is making IPv4 scalable or introducing something new and
incompatible (IPv6 or anything else) we need to make the new system
so attractive in terms of "immediate" benefits to adoptors,
including the earliest adoptors, that it is adopted by the great
majority of providers and end-user networks.

"Immediate" means benefits in months, not years.  Ideally there will
be benefits the moment the new system is turned on.  The benefits
must clearly outweigh the costs (financial, risk, disruption,
unfamiliarity) etc. for most providers and end-user networks -
including especially those who adopt it first - otherwise it will
never be widely enough adopted.

If your position is that a scalable routing and addressing solution
based on geographic aggregation of address space can only be widely
adopted if most or all adoptors (or at least most or all initial
adoptors) do so out of altruism, then I would say this sort of
solution is a non-starter.

Communism would be great - if only the great majority of humans had
the required high principles, altruism, focus on the long-term good
of fellow humans etc.

How could any company with shareholders justify adopting some new
geo-aggregation scheme, which provided no direct benefit to the
company or its customers, and which involved substantial investment,
risk etc.  The shareholders neither know nor care about:

  http://bgp.potaroo.net

and its ill-effects on the Net in general, other perhaps than the
fact that it costs them a little more in general to run however many
DFZ routers they have.

  - Robin


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