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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: 16 vs 32 bit ASNs [Re: BBC does IPv6 ;) (Was: large multi-siteenterprises and PI]
> Of course, every ASN would not be active. But if we'd have 32 bit > ASNs, there would be "no need" (or so folks would argue) to be strict > in the policies -- everyone and their uncle could have one. Folks > could even get ones for their homes, theis SOHO deployments, or their > 3-person, on-the-side consulting companies. And logically, each of > these should have their own PI prefixes and a slot in the global > routing table. > > Scalable? NO. Not just the number of routes, but also the churn those > routes would make.. Oh god. This is where a sensible geographical addressing hierarchy comes in. Start by allocating a very big chunk of the v6 address space to geographical addresses. This chunk should be approximately the same size as the chunk that we expect to use with the current allocation system. We can easily afford to block off this much space in v6. Now, subdivide this chunk into 6 geographic blocks. 5 of those blocks will go to the 5 existing RIRs including Afrinic. The 6th will go in reserve to be subdivided in smaller pieces to places that don't fit the RIR system. Antarctica, ships at sea, airplanes, space stations. There is no guarantee that we would need any of this 6th block, but better safe than sorry. Now, within its geographic block, each RIR would need to develop some plan for subdividing its region into geographic areas that roughly follow the trade and fiber flows of the region. The subdivision is rough because it is not the boundaries that matter, it is the exchange points. Geographic addresses will not work without exchange points. The allocation scheme will be to give addresses to echange point areas in such a way that all addresses within an area can be aggregated outside the area. This way, the global routing tables see only 5 or 6 routes for the entire geographic space. Of course some larger providers with lots of intercontinental connectivity will see a larger number of routes to the different areas within a region. But only local providers and exchange points need to see the full detail of any particular area. This provides a way for smaller organizations to get provider independent blocks of IPv6 addresses so that they can change providers within their geographic area without renumbering. It doesn't solve every problem of renumbering, but it does provide a way for a very large number of smaller organizations to enjoy the same advantages of the larger companies without dirtying the pool in which the larger companies play. This is scalable. It introduces hierarchy in two ways. One, the geographic addresses form a separate routing topology from the flat mesh that most on this list seem to want. This makes the flat mesh more scalable. Secondly, the geographic addresses form a topological hierarchy internally which allows that topology to scale much bigger than the flat mesh. This is fundamentally an operational solution. No protocol changes are needed, the IETF doesn't need to do a thing. This plan would not work unless the RIRs plan and enforce the geographical hierarchy. On the other hand, this is well within the capabilities of the RIRs (and the NRO) to implement. --Michael Dillon
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