North American Network Operators Group

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Re: What is the limit? (was RE: multi-homing fixes)

  • From: Sean M. Doran
  • Date: Wed Aug 29 11:08:15 2001

Leo -

  Draw two curves, the first y=x/2, the second y=x^2
Move the value of x for y=1 for the first curve left by 2, 5 or 10
and it will still be surpassed by the second curve.
You will even see this for a second curve of y=x*2 or y=x.

  The global routing table size HAS grown exponentially 
in the past.   Rationalize it any way you want, blame whatever
you like, but there is no known way to construct a router that
can handle that kind of growth in anything but a short term,
and the trend for the components in the router growth curve
is simply not going to increase to a long term superlinear rate.

  A 10x system performance boost today just moves the x point for
y=1 of fundamental curve claimed by Moore's Law to the left 
a few notches.   Or are you claiming that routing equipment 
will have a fundamentally different, and larger, growth curve
than other computing systems?  (I think there is a basis for
claiming that there are some reasons which would support a 
_shallower_ growth curve for routing equipment, actually).

  In short: are you claiming that the caeteris paribus assumption
in comparing Moore's Law to global routing table size is clearly false?   
It would be nice to see even a partial proof of such a claim.
>From anyone.

	Sean. (today's insult-free posting)