North American Network Operators Group

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Re: classful routes redux

  • From: Michael.Dillon
  • Date: Tue Nov 08 09:49:22 2005

> With no shortage of resources (in this case AS-numbers and IP-addresses)
> we wouldn't have this discussion. Then nobody would care how an
> organisation is using the resources that are allocated to them. 

Thankfully there is no shortage of IP addresses and there
will be no shortage of AS numbers. The factory has already
ramped up production of IPv6 addresses and warehouses are
full. Designs for the new version AS numbers are just about
past engineering review and the factory is ready to begin
production.

> Nobody is questioning the advantages of globally unique identifiers.
> However, administrative resources for the internet are primarily ment to
> serve the public.

And the public *IS* being served by the diversity of
applications and networks which use the Internet 
Protocol. The public is served regardless of whether
the device is on a private network, the global Internet
or some other internet.

> There is technically no need for these networks to share resources with
> the global internet if they have no intention to ever connect to, or
> communicates with nodes on, the global network.

This is where you are wrong. Primarily this is because
firewalls make it possible for organizations to run
a network which connects to BOTH the global Internet
and one or more private Internets without allowing any
traffic to transit between these networks or any routing
information to leak between these networks. Nevertheless,
the network in the middle needs to use globally unique 
addresses and both RFC 1918 and RFC 2050 explicitly
account for such networks. If a network interconnects
with other networks it is *NOT& a private network and
therefore it requires globally unique identifiers.

> Wrong. RIRs have no authority outside the resources they've been
> assigned from the global pool, and certainly not over networks not
> connected to the global internet. RIR's are (as anybody else) free to
> take part in the process of developing global policies.

RIRs have no authority over networks connected to 
the global Internet either. RIRs are part of a system
of self-regulation, not government regulation, and therefore
have no authority other than the consent of their members.

> Anybody is free to build their own separate networks and use
> IP-technology as they want, but internet registries have no obligation
> to administer their resources.

You seem to think that the Internet was created before there
were nascent RIRs managing internet numbering. It was the other
way around. Right from the beginning when IP, the internetwork
protocol, was designed, there was an understanding of the need
to COORDINATE numbering resources. After a while, so many of
the young internetworks connected together that people started
to think and speak of one single global Internet. This is a 
nice result but IP does not belong to *ONLY* those organizations
who connect to the global Internet. It is more general than that.

Even though the Internet is the major revenue source for most
of the companies in which NANOG members work, these companies 
also operate important IP networks which are *NOT* the Internet.
It is important to remember this, especially when talking about
ARIN and other RIRs, ICANN, the IETF, etc. None of these
organizations serve the global Internet exclusively. They serve
the body of protocols which make the Internet, and other internets,
possible.

--Michael Dillon