> but this just underscores the difference here > its the old simplicity vs complexity game yet again
Why should the IETF be making the tradeoff decision here rather than the operators? It seems to me that a more workable solution in today's Internet, is to decouple the definition of the information exchanged by network operators from the protocol used to exchange the information. It should be possible to design a system in such a way that a network operator can choose whether or not to do this job directly on their BGP-speaking routers or whether to offload it onto some type of route-registry database system. In fact, it should be possible for a single AS to vary which model it follows because in larger networks there is less homogeneity, i.e. some BGP routers are far more mission critical and carry higher traffic levels than others. Rather than looking for something that is 100% overloaded on the BGP-speaking routers, why not give network operators the tools to make their own 80-20 decisions about where this network management function should be handled? --Michael Dillon