[address-policy-wg] Just say *NO* to PI space -- or how to make it lessdestructive

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 24, 2006 at 09:39:30AM +0100, Nick Hilliard wrote:
> Gert Doering wrote:
> >The nice thing about Internet (as opposed to the telephone system) is
> >the fact that we have DNS - and thus no need to take our "numbers" with
> >us to be reachable.
> 
> This is certainly the theory.  However, if you are a growing ISP, 
> renumbering from PA space from another LIR to your own PI space or 
> LIR/PA space can be - depending on how your customers are configured - 
> pure pain.

Yes.  Been there, done that.  Couple of times (renumbering an ISP's
recursive name servers is *very much* pain).

But that's local pain.

PI is global pain to everybody else.

> The portability associated with PI space is also important in one other 
> view, in that it allows the holder to switch providers quickly and 
> efficiently.  There's no tie-in of any form, and this is something which 
> is extremely important to business.

This is the standard argument, but only half-true.  For serious internet
connections, you usually need to move your leased-line connection, or
move your servers to a new colocation - which is, assuming ``standard''
setups and some planning in advance, comparable if not more effort to
changing the addresses.

A poorly planned network, with everything hardcoded everywhere (up to
applications that access IP addresses hard-coded in the source) is not
a proper excuse to burden everbody else's routers.

I accept that PI for BGP multihoming purposes is - today - one of the more
reasonable ways to achieve the goal (ISP independence and resilience), but
I still hope that we won't ever see the "let's get PI once, and never have 
to renumber again!" land rush.

Gert Doering
        -- NetMaster
-- 
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