Re: RIPE position paper - The RARE view
- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 22:00:14 MET DST
This is actually a very depressing story, to be honest I don't
understand how Rare can afford all of this paperworks.
It's counterproductive, for the money spent on the PIXI specification
a full year of 2MB Ebone could have been provided for the users.
The Ebone today, is delevering what they are trying to do with the
EMPB, it is multi architecture (CLNP and TCP/IP) and could easily
support almost any known comunications protocol, if it is requested
by the USER comunity. My personal opinion is that we should stay
with architectures that are open and have a global naming/addressing
scheme.
They talk about cooperation, but that is no really their aim, they want
to increese their power and *manage* the lower standing people, as
puppet's. Political power seems to be a bigger problem than running
out of address space or routing resources.
The Ebone initiative has showed that it's possible to do more in 12
monts than Rare in it's lifetime, just by omitting the -well managed-
(in their terms), part of networking.
Now for some comments on the letter from > COA (92)080
> T.Kalin
> 24.8.92
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 1. INTRODUCTION
>
>
> There are some recent technical, organisational and political developments
> in Europe and in the Internet world at large which are rapidly changing the
> whole networking scene in Europe and globally:
>
> establishment of EBONE
The credit for the Ebone success lies with all the people that have
been working hard to make it hapen, THANKS!
> pending establishment of the Operational Unit
> signature of the IXI - PS contract
> ECFRN initiative
>
> and
>
> NSFNET backbone/NAP solicitation
> GIX concept introduced by IEPG in Tokyo
(I'm one of the names listed as authours of this paper, so I will
quote some of it, to show that what they call development does not
apply to them....)
"Key non-technical goals are to ensure the participipation by ALL
segments of the Internet community -- both the traditional CCIRN
(thats R+D) constituency and others -- in working toward a high-
quality world-wide Internet."
"The proposal addresses the following technical and non-technical
goals:
- Maximal Connectivity: Enhance access and connectivity of the
global Internet, Interconnectivity of networks should be enhanced,
including those networks wich are not directly founded by
traditional CCIRN constituencies.
- Cost-effective Transit: Make available to all our networks the best
available possibilities for worldwide transit. To the extent
possible, promote the sharing of global transit resources and
sharing costs.
- High-quality Routing: Work toward routing management that supports
the connectivity and transit goals while being technically optimal.
"
"Along with this goals, we also agreed on the following qualities that
must apply to our approaches to them:
- Scalability: We understand that the size of the internet, mesured
either in traffic or number of connected networks, is growing
exponentially, and that our engineering and operations must scale.
- Managebility: We understand that the worldwide Internet must be as
well managed as one under a single administration, and yet recognise
the autonomy of each constituent network.
- Accountability: We understand thet any successful worldwide
connectivity structure must be accountable.
- Timeliness: We understand that the cost of staying with the status
quo, or the cost of delay, is wery high. Maintaining the integrity
of the Internet requires prompt action.
"
And to this we also concluded;
"
- An open forum for coordination. This forum would provide full
participation for non-US and for non-research-and-education
networks.
- Very broad usage. A global interconnection point must be able to
pass research, education, and other traffic. Some connecting
networks may still have research/education AUP's but the
interconnection structure should not.
"
My persional view is that just taking this limited point's into
concederation, the Rare/COSINE EMPB specification people has addressed
any of the key issues in their documents. And by the way the are
SECRET! (All Ebone documents are avaliable with anonymous FTP from
NIC.NORDU.NET)
> proposed architectural changes in draft IPv7
>
>
> Taking the above developments into account one should re-evaluate the ways
> and means how to improve the services provided to the European R&D
> community by fully utilising the vast pool of expertise available in
> Europe.
The Ebone today is an implementation of what is possible using layer-3
technology to create a GIX type framework to support USERS.
And it's an open forum, anyone can join.
> The reporting scheme as defined in Innsbruck CoA:
>
> RIPE, on behalf of RARE, defines the tasks and functions of the NCC
> the NCC reports to RIPE on operational matters
> the NCC reports to RARE on the organisational matters
> RIPE, on behalf of RARE, regularly reviews the operations of the NCC
> RIPE copies its definitions of NCC tasks and functions to RTC
> NCC copies all its reports on operational matters to RTC
> RIPE reports its findings on the operations of the NCC to RTC
What is RTC?
When should the Ripe NCC have time to do their tasks?
Are Rare providing additional people to handle the byrocracy?
> As noted before, RARE members presently finance the RIPE NCC. It seems that
> the commercial networks participating in RIPE work do not regard their
> direct financial contribution vital for the operation of NCC. This does of
> course not reduce the value of enormous efforts that some of them have
> invested in the RIPE work and to the success of EBONE.
Let me point out that the nordic carriers and Tele2 and Eunet together
has put in more resources in the Ebone than any single academic
network.
Not even counting the recources that have been put in in manpower
to write documents, debug software and travel expences.
> One can assume, with a high probability, the following scenario for the
> near term development in networking in Europe:
>
> + full operation of European 2 Mbps multiprotocol backbone - EMPB (~End 93)
The only thing needed to make this hapen are more bandwidth to Ebone,
no need for piloting etc, off the shelf boxes that you buy on the
K-mart solves this, if you can find the power on bottom.
I'm now naive talking about a 2M service, not a 2M management.
> + upgrade EMPB to higher speeds (~End 94 ?)
This is a pice of kake, E3 (34Mbps) can be done with todays Ebone
equipment, just add the links between them and two interface cards.
> Very complex and difficult management tasks which are politically and
> technically dependent on full cooperation of the whole community concerned,
> require:
Well, this is not my table, but this is the problem, and only this....
> + active cooperation of technical experts from the RARE and RIPE members
> in the execution of the plans
>
> The crux for the success of the task at hand is in the last point.
If someone asks me to make a Pig sing, I will refuce, if someone asks
me to solve a highly complicated technical networking problem and push
the technology beound it's limits, I be delighted, and the crew will
grow exponentially, without even asking them.
> RIPE should support establishment and utilisation of the EMPB,
> particulary in the pilot phase, where the its expertise is crucially
> needed
Pigs does not sing very well.
> RIPE NCC:
>
> One should seek to have the continuity of the services provided by NCC by
> all means. To achieve this goal, the best position of the NCC is in the
> Operational Unit, the organisation managing the EMPB, subject to a
> commitment by OU, to offer adequate services, at the cost, also to
> networking organisations which are not owners or customers of the OU. This
> move should contribute to a better manageability of the EMPB. It solves as
> well the problem of how to fund NCC, furthermore, significant support
> >From CEC is very likely in the starting period.
Se the 'GIX' paper, the routing registratory has to be 'accountable'
that means it should be neutral to any providor. That's exactly what
the US are working on.
I have noot seen anything from the EMPB how they should handle routing
coordination with other networks in europe or on other continents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-Peter Lothberg, for those who does not knew, I have had
my fingers in the implementation of the
orginal Sunet, Nordunet and lately Swipnet,
Ebone and Sprintlink. Currently working
on BGP/cider and sorce-demand routing.