Re: [Int-area] Using ISO8473 as a network layer to carry flexible addresses

[Stewart Bryant <[e-mail]>]

> On 2 Mar 2021, at 20:15, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> On 03-Mar-21 01:32, Stewart Bryant wrote:
>> 
>> 
>>> On 1 Mar 2021, at 20:08, Brian E Carpenter <[e-mail] <mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> It would take but a minute to design a longer-address mechanism for IPv6, although I don't have space to include it in the margin of this email**. But it would take many years for it to be widely implemented and deployed, during which time the Internet would be opaque to such addresses.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ** Basically, use a prefix such as fb00::/8 to indicate an extended address.
>> 
>> Hi Brian
>> 
>> Basically I think that this fails the backwards compatibility text.
> 
> Short answer: that's why the Internet would be opaque to it for many years.
> 
> Longer answer: change every router in the universe (exactly what we did to achieve the universal deployment of IPv6). At that point, changing the ethertype/IP version is really not that different than demultiplexing packets by looking at the first byte of the source address.
> 
> But I am not seriously advocating any of this. If I'd believed this was a viable approach, I would have advocated one of the IPng proposals that extended IPv4 addressing in that way.
> 

Fundamental to moving this discussion forward is an understanding of what the future structure of the Internet will be.

Will it be the classical model of client-edge-aggregation-core-agregarion-edge-server with large quantities of traffic going through the core, or will it be client-edge-server for the majority of traffic with server-server to build the application running in a private network and only a minority of traffic still running using the classical model?

If the Internet evolves to the client-edge-server model there is an opportunity to migrate away from the worst effort model that currently constrains us, to a model that provides the service that the customers are prepared to pay for.

If there is a viable commercial case for higher quality services provided at the edge, then than will happen, regardless of any decisions we took 20 years ago which currently limit our ability to evolve the network layer, and regardless of any position that the IETF takes to block it. At the end of the day it all comes down to economics, and it is currently unclear whether the classical model will prevail or a new model will develop, or indeed if there is a change, when and how fast it will transition.

- Stewart