The IP over ATM Mailing List Archive by date

[Markus Jork <jork@nestvx.enet.dec.com>]

> In the message I am replying to, Mr. Jork (Sorry if that is the wrong
> form of reference, I am writing from home) suggests that one may not
> need a complete, connected, routing overlay to support IPv6 over ATM.
> There are at least two reasons why such an overlay is absoluately necessary.

Mr. Halpern,

[why not just use our given names, sounds much more friendly and that's what
 everybody else uses in the IETF]

I'm afraid we are drifting into a discussion that is of not much interest
to the ipng list. And I really don't think there is much of a disagreement 
here.

> 1) As has been discussed in the IP/ATM group, in the ROLC group, and
>    at the ATM Forum MPOA group, there are definitely situations where
>    establishing a VC for a received packet is somewhere between 
>    inefficient and extremely foolhardy.

I agree that there are these situations. That's why I wrote "It depends on
your applications".

> 2) In order to be able to select ATM exits to reach networks behind
>    the ATM fabric, routing must be consulted.  Therefore, one must have
>    access to routing.  The size (number of stations) of the service area
>    of individual routers may be very large, but it MUST exist.

Of course there must be routers to move packets from ATM to some other
network. (Unless we forget about native IP and just use LAN emulation.)
And these routers have to talk to each other. So there is a routing overlay.
No disagreement here.
I was referring to the rolc model of this large ATM cloud consisting
of lots of LISs, interconnected by routers. Some of these routers will be
at the "edge of the ATM cloud" (i.e. border routers connecting ATM to
someting else), others just connecting two or more LISs. What I was trying
to say: Peter's draft leaves network managers with the option not to install
these "inside-the-cloud-only" routers.
Maybe the whole discussion is pointless because in real-world networks, all
routers will be border routers anyway. Because someone plugs in some Ethernet
or whatever.

Markus