The IP Over NBMA (ION) Archive

[jhalpern@us.Newbridge.com (Joel Halpern)]

These comments are my initial reactions.  As per the agenda, we will have 
a discussion of this and other alternatives at the meetings.

Two things struck me with regard to this draft:

1) With regard to Neighbor Solicitiation/Reply, we seem to have two
   reasonable choices.  
   A) On the one hand, we can have IPv6 hosts emit NS messages for all 
      destinations.  For those destinations outside of the logical link,
      some appropriate router would transform (gateway) these into NHRP
      requests.  (There would be similar transformations on the destination
      side, and again when the NHRP response is received.)  This can be 
      made to work.  It has the advantage of preserving precisely the
      ND protocol.  It has the disadvantage of requiring protocol gatewaying.
   B) Alternatively, we could require IPv6 hosts to emit NHRP requests.
   It should be noted in evaluating these alternatives that my reading of
   the Neighbor discovery document is that it is very explicit that we 
   must provide the ND services, but that over an NBMA we are explicitly
   NOT required to provide the exact same protocol.

2) With regard to the LLS for purposes other than neighbor solicitation,
   it seems to me that the LLS in attempting to be "simpler" than MARS,
   is functionally equivalent to a coresident MARS/MCS.  I would ask
   why we want to develop two mechanisms, including two replication
   protocols and two client behaviors, in order to support two very similar
   aspects of the same problem?

Just my personal reading of the document,
Yours,
Joel M. Halpern				jhalpern@newbridge.com
Newbridge Networks Inc.