North American Network Operators Group
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Re: virtual aggregation in IETF

  • From: Joel Jaeggli
  • Date: Sun Jul 20 12:29:19 2008
Paul Francis wrote:
Gang,

I have submitted an internet-draft to the IDR group on virtual aggregation
(VA) (http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-francis-idr-intra-va-00.txt).
This draft suggests a few changes to routers that allow operators to control
the size of their FIBs, shrinking them by 5x or 10x quite easily.  This would
extend the lifetime of routers that are constrained by FIB size.

There has been a lively discussion of this on the IDR mailing list, including
a suggestion that FIB reduction is more important for lower tier ISPs (tier
2, tier 3...) than for tier 1 ISPs.  Unfortunately I don't think that people
from smaller ISPs pay much attention to the IDR mailing list, so they are not
being represented in this discussion.

Software switched routers have little pressure on fib limitions. For a certain class of application the software switched edge router is in a much better position to accommodate fib growth than a device with a fixed sized cam.

If you're in the business of shopping for sup-2s on ebay you'll probably see significant benefits in fib reduction.

So I'm looking for input from folks who think that FIB reduction helps them,
so as to better understand their requirements.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,

PF