Re: OSPF WG Charter Proposal

[Dave Katz <[e-mail]>]

   Such failures are not the fault of the service provider operation or the vendor/equipment implementation.  They are due to shortcomings in the link-state protocols themselves -- thus the need for the enhancements proposed in the draft.

I strongly disagree with this statement.  While the design of the
protocols can make it challenging, there is ample room in
implementation to provide stable and scalable networks.

When a network collapses, the fault lies at the feet of the
implementors.  In every case I've seen (too many), the collapse was
inevitable sooner or later, due to naive design choices in software,
but at the same time was quite nonlinear in its onset (making any
predictive or self-monitoring approach pretty hopeless.)

There are some things that would make the job easier, at the cost
of additional complexity, but pointing at network collapses and blaming
the protocols is disingenuous.

--Dave