The Routing Over Large Clouds Mailing List Archive by date

[Sam Wilson <ercm20@tattoo.ed.ac.uk>]

> From:     Masataka Ohta <mohta@necom830.hpcl.titech.ac.jp>
>
> But, as ATM large clouds do not and, in short-term, will not, exist,
> NHRP is not a short- or long- term answer.

I don't believe this is true for all values of 'large' and 'short-term'. 
In Scotland we have 4 Academic MANs based on ATM or mixed ATM/FDDI
technology.  Each of these has its own (IP) routing model.  We are about
to link them together using ATM switches and routers-on-sticks to make a
large cloud in the short term.  NHRP MAY help us to avoid either the
obvious router bottlenecks or the administrative complexity of
overlaying a mesh of IP connections over a simple ATM star topology. 

I say 'may' because as a lurker/hanger-on/near-layman in the ROLC arena
my reaction to seeing the guts of NHRP is one of sheer horror at the
complexity of it all.  Yes, OK, I've seen it develop and I know why it's
like that, but each time I read one of the NHRP drafts I keep thinking
there MUST be a better way.  Cell switching routers clearly aren't that
in the short term, and aren't currently the IETF consensus about the way
to go.  As a network operator I have to go for what's affordable and
available. 


Sam Wilson
Network Services Division
Computing Services, The University of Edinburgh
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK