Re: [rrg] Scalable Internet

[Dae Young KIM <dykim at cnu.kr>]

Hi, Christopher,

Please find my response interspersed.

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 11:36 PM, Christopher Morrow <morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 6:02 AM, Dae Young KIM <dykim at cnu.kr> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 18, 2009 at 3:40 PM, Christopher Morrow
> <morrowc.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> From your txt:
>>
>> A. Fundamentals:
>>    o Skeletons:
>>         o ID is global, Locator is local(private) to AS.
>>
>> isn't that backwards? ID == my local machine, 'locator' is my network
>> attachment (or the network that I'm attached to).
>>
>> So the ID is required (and unique) only within my network, the
>> 'locator' is unique globally.
>>
>> -chris
>
> There are two aspects to this.
>
>    1. Having locators local is a necessary first step to avoid the gateway
> (aka IDR(Inter-domain Routing) router) table explosion. By not having to
> manage global locators, gateways don't have to exchange (locator) network
> prefixes and so keep their tables from growing indefinitely(or too
> excessively, exponentially). Instead, they would advertise the AS numbers.
> In fact, a AS number can be seen as an aggregated identifier of all the IDs
> inside the AS's domain.

In most of the past conversation: "ID" has meant the equivalent
(loosely) of 'interface ip address' or 'interface attachment point'
                                               "Locator" has meant
the equivalent (loosely) of 'ASN'

My reading of the initial quote did not match the above 2 items.

Actually, I'm new to this group, so don't have the collected knowledge of past conversations. My sincere apology.

By ID here, I mean the ID of the host. This ID is to be used in Transport connections with its peer. But it is not meant for routing.

Locator, by contrast, is for the interface, as you say, or PoA(point-of-attachment).

I intentionally try not to use the term 'address' or 'IP address', since in the current Internet, the IP address is used as both ID and Locator.

>   2. IMHO, there's no compelling reason why the locators should be global,
> in network architectural sense.
>
>         o All over the world, the street numbers would be sequenced from 1
> to 100 or the like. They are local, but we don't have problems to reaching
> someone we want.

'locator' in the sense of a mailing address (in the us) would be some
combination of: ZipCode + town.
'identifier' in the sense of a mailing address (in the us) would be
'house-number' (or street number + apartment number).

No. 'house #' (street # + apt #) is still part of the locator to my definition. Instead, your name on the envelope would be the ID in my context.

>         o How global is 'global'? What are we going to do about the
> inter-planetary Internet? How about the spaceships on the moon or the Mars?

I'm not sure geography matters here... network topology does.

Even in topology, how large is going to be your topology?

But, in fact, this is not the real point. Independently of the question of the network size, there's no compelling network architectural reason for the locator to be global in achieving the task of reaching (routing) to the destination.

e2e routing can be done in a network of concatenated ASs each with local locators.

>          o Delivering packets, tagged with ID, to a regional authority in
> charge of locating the objects within its region is enough to reach a
> targeted receiver.

'tagged with locator' to the region, taking the identifier once it's
inside the 'region' for final delivery to the end system.

No, the reverse. A packet in IDR(inter-domain routing) will only be tagged with an ID of a target destination host. Once the packet arrives at an ingress gateway (IDR router) into the AS the target host belongs to, the packet will then be appended with a local locator of the AS ('region' in your terminology). The local 'id-to-loc' (also serves as 'as-to-loc') mapper provide the local locator to the target host.

-Chris

I'm attaching the revised summary of my idea with the hope that it provides a better picture of what I have in mind.

-- 
Regards,

DY
http://cnu.kr/~dykim

                SCALABLE INTERNET
                                                        dykim, 09.11

A. Fundamentals:

    o Skeletons:
         o ID is global, Locator is local(private) to AS.
         o Keep use of DNS, with some extension.
         o TCP works on ID, IP on Loctor, Gateways(BGP) on AS #.
         o Gateways advertises only AS #s, not network prefixes.

    o Corollaries:
         o Number space of AS is limited to 2^^16(64K) in one tier.
         o AS tier recurs hierarchically, downward and upwards(or inwards and outwards). In each tier, the maximum number of ASs is limited to 2^^16.
         o AS(cloud) can float within and across tiers. AS(ISP) can change is neighbor relation anytime in the course of its existence within and across the tier architecture.

    o Implementation choices:
         o Take IPv4 and IPv6 addresses as IDs. That is, IP addresses in the current Internet infrastructure is to be used as IDs, not anymore as locators.
         o Locators are local (private) IP addresses.
         o DNS is extended to serve not only name-to-address(ID) mapping but also ID-to-AS mapping.
         o Mapping between AS and (local) Locator, forward as well as reverse, is done by a server(LocS) within the AS where the affected hosts or gateways belong. 

B. Scenario of outgoing communication example:

    1. DNS returns the remote (glabal) ID as well as the AS number it belongs to.
    2. TCP establishes connections by use of ID.
    3. TCP requests, to IP, transmission of segments with the AS number, as a parameter, of the domain where the destination peer belongs.
    4a. If the target AS is foreign, IP uses a locator to deliver the packet to the egress gateway(BGP) router.
    4b. If the target AS is local, IP uses a locator(private IP address) to deliver the packet. The target can be a local host or the ingress router into a local internal AS belonging to one lower(deeper) tier.
    5. Local gateway relays the packet to one of the next hop gateways that advertised the target AS #.

C. Scenario of incoming communication example:

    1. If the AS of the incoming packet is a foreign one for which the receiving AS has contracted for transit, the packet is redirected to a relevant outgoing gateway.
    2. If the AS of the incoming packet is indeed local, the ingress gateway delivers the packet to the target implied by the ID imbedded in the packet. The resultant target can be a local host or an ingress router into a local internal AS beloning to one lower(deeper) tie. 

D. Consequences

    o Gateway routing table doesn't explode, never exceeds 64K(2^^16).
    o AS tier can recurs, theoretically, indefinitely. The whole Internet can scale to infinity.
    o NAT is a norm, not an evil.
    o The current IP address management infrastructure won't be abandoned. They operate exactly the same way as it does. Only that the number is now used as IDs, not for locators.
    o The current DNS infrastructure is maintained, only with a bit of extension. It now has to keep database of (domain name, ID, AS number) tuples.
    o Minimal disturbance to the current Internet infrastructure, with a path out for sustainable scalability.

Your comments are solicited.