Re: Thinking differently about names and addresses

[Dave Crocker <[e-mail]>]

Tony,

TH>  The discussions on the multi6 mail list
TH> have basically been about how the routing community believes the address
TH> is the topology locator, while your & Dave's comments show the app
TH> community believes it is an identifier.

By definition, an address is a topology indicator.  Always.

The point that I was trying to make is that the uniqueness of an
address's bits permits its use as an uninterrupted label, ie, a name.
(Up a few layers, this is the basis for including URL's in the set of
URI's.)

So this is not about competing definitions of the bits, but different
USES of them.  IP needs to interpret those bits.  Hence, it MUST handle
them as topological indicators.  Apps that use IP addresses use them as
simple labels.


TH>  Where the two communities agree
TH> is that the DNS as currently deployed and operated is not up to the task
TH> of handling the identifier role. My point is that this is due more to
TH> implementation & operation than architecture.

Responding to this point takes us into the world of solutions. I suspect
we will all find this topic more productive (and probably more pleasant)
when we move into that mode.


TH> Also I believe the multi6
TH> discussion about creating a new identifier, to get the app community to
TH> stop camping on the topology locator, will end up creating a distributed
TH> database infrastructure almost identical to DNS. We don't need two of
TH> those, so we should fix DNS.

That was my own view roughly 10 years ago, when Noel Chiappa was pushing
for use of an end-point identifier, as part of what is now IPv6.

At this stage, I would want to hear the requirements (or probably
better, the desired usage scenarios) before being certain that a
modified DNS is the answer.


TH> I disagree with the perspective that subnetting or CIDR changed the
TH> character of the address.

Before:  IP addresses contained no topological information.

After:   IP addresses contained quite a bit of topological information
AND that information was (is) used quite heavily.

A change that permits a routing table to be reduced massively
necessarily involves changing the character of something.

d/
--
 Dave Crocker <mailto:[e-mail]>
 Brandenburg InternetWorking <http://www.brandenburg.com>
 Sunnyvale, CA  USA <tel:[phone]>, <fax:[phone]>