On 8 sep 2010, at 19:43, Fernando Gont wrote: >> - we shouldn't lock down the flow label such that only one flow label >> per flow is allowed because this would impede future innovation
> The only problem with this is that if you allow a given flow to use > multiple flows, the flow-label reuse frequency might increase, and > collisions might occur. So what? Obviously if you have a couple of gigabit streams then it would be nice if they don't share a flow label. But if you have 5000 streams it really doesn't matter if a few have the same flow label. In the multipath case this is even less of a problem because if a certain flow label value doesn't work well, it will just use another one. >> - zero flow labels are still created by many systems, but these would >> hamper a flow label based ECMP. Rewriting zero flow labels into a >> real flow label somewhere in the network would therefore be a useful >> function > Some of these boxes set the flow label inconsistently. Not sure what you mean with "inconsistent" but I'll read it as "undesired". That should not be taken as a reason to overwrite the flow label, though. If that becomes common practice then a whole class of possible uses goes out the door. Remember, the flow label is an optimization, use it if it's helpful, ignore it otherwise. Don't try to be smarter than everyone else and impose your own logic, nobody stays smarter than everyone else for long. -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list ipv6@ietf.org Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------
