prefix lengths [was Re: stla registry db issue]

[Brian E Carpenter]

Folks,

2**64 is a big number. It's the square of 2**32 if nobody noticed. The majority of
BigCos will be able to understand this and use no more than an SLA. If there are a few
idiot CIOs who insist on more for no good reason, it isn't the end of the world.

I am very relaxed about /29s being reserved at this stage of the life of IPv6,
because 2**29 is also a big number. I'm not recommending any change in the RIR
guideline of only allocating /35s; all I'm doing is saying that we must stick
to the rule of not splitting /29s between ISPs.

If BigCo is 20-homed, and doesn't want to deal with 20 prefixes, then I can certainly
see a case for them leasing a prefix that can be in the default-free table. But this
really will be the exception case. What we must do is ensure that a 2-homed site can
easily deal with 2 prefixes. BTW, how many 6bone sites are multihomed today?

   Brian

"Perry E. Metzger" wrote:
> 
> "Michael H. Lambert" <lambert@psc.edu> writes:
> > On Thu, 23 Dec 1999, Bill Manning wrote:
> > >
> > >     Er, that is pretty much exactly the point I was trying to make.
> > >     If Brian is right and that group is successful in restricting
> > >     announcements to /29's, how much space is wasted for the sixty
> > >     nodes that form the cluster "www.bigco.com" that has connections
> > >     to 20 major ISPs?
> >
> > But is "bigco.com" a transit IPv6 provider?  My understanding is that if
> > it isn't, it should never be allocated its own TLA.  It should receive a
> > small block from each of its ISPs.  Or am I missing something?
> 
> Anyone out there who thinks they can actually prevent GM or Yahoo or
> the like from getting their own routes announced should talk to an
> anti-trust lawyer.
> 
> Perry

-- 
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Brian E Carpenter (IAB Chair)
Program Director, Internet Standards & Technology, IBM 
On assignment for IBM at http://www.iCAIR.org 
Attend INET 2000: http://www.isoc.org/inet2000
Non-IBM email: brian@icair.org