g'day,
Nothing like a good schism to get the juices flowing, no? As this
ongoing debate continues, I have one question on this whole NAT/Site
Local/"Monophysitism versus Nestorism" thing, then one observation:
First, the question.
I keep seeing offhand remarks about some foobar amount of traffic is
NATed, some mubblefink amount of NAT addressing is done because of
address scarcity, while another babblebrush amount of ISPs will be
allocating IPv6 addresses to individuals out of single /64s, so they
wont even get their own /48s, etc, etc. Can someone please point me to
the real, definitive studies and the concrete data that you're all using
as the basis for this debate?
Right now, everyone seems to be engaged in a cyclic round of "No It Is!
Yes it Isn't" polemic that boils down to a schism within the IETF
priesthood - some believe in a single, divine Eutychian or Monophysitian
address space, others contemplate a dual, Nestorian system. I'd
personally feel better if I felt the alternative positions were based
upon alternative interpretation of some firm scientific data, but from
what's going by at least on the ietf general list, this comes across as
a clash of belief systems, not a clash of scientific principles.
I personally suspect that the Nestorians are on to something here, but
I'd be happy to study the data and reach an alternative conclusion if I
could have something beside this on-going "Jane, you ignorant slut"
level of debate.
So here are a few things we could ask:
- So what percentage of machines really are being NATed right now?
- What percentage of traffic is generated and consumed by NATed
hosts?
- What's the deployment rate of IPv6 (ie. is it growing fast enough
to matter to me in five years?)
and so on...
I would like to think some real data might help us a bit here to find
the path out of the woods. All I'm seeing on this list are affirmations
of faith. Please, how about sharing a little more of the hard science
behind your conclusions, folks?
And now, my observation:
Robert Elz wrote:
...
> What matters here is the use of topology sensitive addresses. If the
> address reflects the topology of the network, then it has to change when
> the topology changes.
>
> It happens that in the current network environment, the topology is
> controlled by the providers, so we have provider supplied addressing
> to correctly reflect the topology.
>
> Getting provider independent addressing is plausible - we just need
> to make the network topology (somehow) stop being controlled by the
> providers.
>
> Getting addressing that is independent of the topology is a much more
> interesting problem. That one I don't believe we have any way to
> accomplish yet, that works with routing. Until we do, we need
> addressing for local use.
As I read this my first reaction was "great observation, it's good to
see a new idea enter this debate". Then, a milliblip later my brain
fired a neuron that yelled out "Hey, aren't NATs just a means for users
to provide themselves with a topologically independent addresses to
divorce them from the topologically oriented address space imposed on
them by their ISPs?"
There are lots of good reasons to go for a Monophysitian address space,
so presumably there must be some compelling alternative reasons why
people keep ignoring this principle. It looks like we might want to add
"provides non-topologically structured address space" to the list of
advantages for NATs. Personally, I believe that 142 percent of the
people that install NATs do it for this reason alone!! ;-)
- peterd
PDF: Oh, and for those who missed my subtle hidden message, both
Nestorism and Monophysitism are now regarded as heresies by those who
ended up in charge of such things in that other priesthood down the
road...
--
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Peter Deutsch pdeutsch@gydig.com
Gydig Software
"Next to Nestorianism, Monophysitism produced the greatest schism
that the Eastern Church had suffered."
http://www.ewtn.com/library/chistory/eveislam.htm
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05633a.htm
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