Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-26 Thread Raymond Macharia



This sounds like the latest noise about global warming and how we are 
all going to disappear if we do not go green soon. Not to trivialize 
the issue but its getting to the point where it sounds like fear 
mongering. The crisis of the internet scenario mentioned here sounds the 
same

Sounds like box pushing to me.

Raymond


Leigh Porter wrote:

A friend of mine who is a Jehova's Witness read something about the
Internet and the end of the world in Watchtower recently. Could it be
the same thing do you think?

Perhaps they got it right this time?

--
Leigh Porter



Andrew Odlyzko wrote:
  

Isn't this same Dr. Larry Roberts who 5 years ago was claiming, based
on data from the 19 largest ISPs, or something like that, that Internet
traffic was growing 4x each year, and so the world should rush to order
his latest toys (from Caspian Networks, at that time)?

  http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/roberts.caspian.txt

All the evidence points to the growth rate at that time being around 2x
per year.  And now Larry Roberts claims that current Internet traffic
is around 2x per year, while there is quite a bit of evidence that the
correct figure is closer to 1.5x per year,

  http://www.dtc.umn.edu/mints

Andrew Odlyzko




   On Thu Oct 25, Alex Pilosov wrote:

  On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Paul Vixie wrote:
   
   Dr. Larry Roberts, co-founder of the ARPANET and inventor of packet

   switching, predicts the Internet is headed for a major crisis in an
   article published on the Internet Evolution web site today. Internet
   traffic is now growing much more quickly than the rate at which router
   cost is decreasing, Roberts says. At current growth levels, the cost of
   deploying Internet capacity to handle new services like social
   networking, gaming, video, VOIP, and digital entertainment will double
   every three years, he predicts, creating an economic crisis. Of course,
   Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran Inc., which makes a
   technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims, will solve
   all of the world's routing problems in one go.
   
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1643248

  I don't know, this is mildly offtopic (aka, not very operational) but the
  article made me giggle a few times.

  a) It resembles too much of Bob Metcalfe predicting the death of the
  Internet. We all remember how that went (wasn't there NANOG tshirt with 
  Bob eating his hat?)


  b) In the words of Randy Bush, We tried this 10 years ago, and it didn't 
  work then. Everyone was doing flow-based routing back in '90-95 (cat6k 
  sup1, gsr e0, first riverstoned devices, foundry ironcore, etc). Then, 
  everyone figured out that it does not scale (tm Vijay Gill) and went to 
  tcam-based architectures (for hardware platforms) or cef-like based 
  architectures for software platforms. In either case, performance doesn't 
  depend on flows/second, but only packets/second.


  Huge problem with flow-based routing is susceptibility to ddos (or
  abnormal traffic patterns). It doesn't matter that your device can route
  1mpps of normal traffic if it croaks under 10kpps of ddos (or
  codered/nimda/etc).

  -alex [not mlc anything]

  [mlc]

  




  


Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-26 Thread Ross Vandegrift

On Thu, Oct 25, 2007 at 05:36:11PM -0400, Scott Brim wrote:
 On 25 Oct 2007 at 17:02 -0400, Jason Frisvold allegedly wrote:
  Anyone have any experience with these Anagran flow routers?  Are they
  that much of a departure from traditional routing that it makes a big
  difference?
 
 There's no difference in routing per se.  Rather it's in-band
 signaling of QoS parameters to provide feedback to queue management.

I read over the vendor's site when that article was sent, and I'll be
honest, a lot of what they are trumpeting are steps backwards in
router performance.

While the site is pretty light on the details, Anagram's Fast Flow
Routing Architecture sounds very similar to dated multilayer switching
approaches.  CEF-like adjacency certainly provides higher routing
throughput with less overhead.  So if it's a win, it must be a win
because the cost of going back to a flow-caching is offset by a gain
in better QoS.

Their QoS details are a bit sketchy, but this would worry me:

BTC basically 'watches every flow. By constantly comparing each
flow's behavior over time against a simple set of operator-defined
rules per flow class, BTC can identify suspect flows that by virtue
of their duration, byte count, source/destination, or other criteria,
require some form of corrective or policing action.

So now there's a flow table that in the forwarding plane.  What
happens when the flow table overflows?  How does the router decide
when to age-out a flow?  

I have yet to see a flow-centric filtering device save the network
when it's flow/session table is what's under attack.

-- 
Ross Vandegrift
[EMAIL PROTECTED]

The good Christian should beware of mathematicians, and all those who
make empty prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians
have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine
man in the bonds of Hell.
--St. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram, Book II, xviii, 37


ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Paul Vixie

Dr. Larry Roberts, co-founder of the ARPANET and inventor of packet
switching, predicts the Internet is headed for a major crisis in an article
published on the Internet Evolution web site today. Internet traffic is now
growing much more quickly than the rate at which router cost is decreasing,
Roberts says. At current growth levels, the cost of deploying Internet
capacity to handle new services like social networking, gaming, video, VOIP,
and digital entertainment will double every three years, he predicts, creating
an economic crisis. Of course, Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran
Inc., which makes a technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims,
will solve all of the world's routing problems in one go.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1643248


Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Jason Frisvold

On 10/25/07, Paul Vixie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 an economic crisis. Of course, Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran
 Inc., which makes a technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims,
 will solve all of the world's routing problems in one go.

Anyone have any experience with these Anagran flow routers?  Are they
that much of a departure from traditional routing that it makes a big
difference?  I haven't done a lot of research into flow-based routing
at this point, but it sounds like this would be similar to the MPLS
approach, no?

How about cost per port versus traditional routers from Cisco or
Juniper?  It seems that he cites cost as the main point of contention,
so are these Anagran routers truly less expensive?

-- 
Jason 'XenoPhage' Frisvold
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://blog.godshell.com


Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Alex Pilosov

On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Paul Vixie wrote:
 
 Dr. Larry Roberts, co-founder of the ARPANET and inventor of packet
 switching, predicts the Internet is headed for a major crisis in an
 article published on the Internet Evolution web site today. Internet
 traffic is now growing much more quickly than the rate at which router
 cost is decreasing, Roberts says. At current growth levels, the cost of
 deploying Internet capacity to handle new services like social
 networking, gaming, video, VOIP, and digital entertainment will double
 every three years, he predicts, creating an economic crisis. Of course,
 Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran Inc., which makes a
 technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims, will solve
 all of the world's routing problems in one go.
 
 http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1643248
I don't know, this is mildly offtopic (aka, not very operational) but the
article made me giggle a few times.

a) It resembles too much of Bob Metcalfe predicting the death of the
Internet. We all remember how that went (wasn't there NANOG tshirt with 
Bob eating his hat?)

b) In the words of Randy Bush, We tried this 10 years ago, and it didn't 
work then. Everyone was doing flow-based routing back in '90-95 (cat6k 
sup1, gsr e0, first riverstoned devices, foundry ironcore, etc). Then, 
everyone figured out that it does not scale (tm Vijay Gill) and went to 
tcam-based architectures (for hardware platforms) or cef-like based 
architectures for software platforms. In either case, performance doesn't 
depend on flows/second, but only packets/second.

Huge problem with flow-based routing is susceptibility to ddos (or
abnormal traffic patterns). It doesn't matter that your device can route
1mpps of normal traffic if it croaks under 10kpps of ddos (or
codered/nimda/etc).

-alex [not mlc anything]

[mlc]




Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Rubens Kuhl Jr.

When we start migrating to IPv6, wouldn't state-aware forwarding be
required for a good part of the traffic that is being translated from
customer IPv6 to a legacy IPv4 ?

I'm a personal fan of topology-based forwarding, but this is limited
to the address space of the topology we currently use, which is
running out of space in a few years (few meaning whatever version of
the IPv4 RIRs deadline you believe in).


Rubens


On 10/25/07, Jason Frisvold [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On 10/25/07, Paul Vixie [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
  an economic crisis. Of course, Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of 
  Anagran
  Inc., which makes a technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts 
  claims,
  will solve all of the world's routing problems in one go.

 Anyone have any experience with these Anagran flow routers?  Are they
 that much of a departure from traditional routing that it makes a big
 difference?  I haven't done a lot of research into flow-based routing
 at this point, but it sounds like this would be similar to the MPLS
 approach, no?

 How about cost per port versus traditional routers from Cisco or
 Juniper?  It seems that he cites cost as the main point of contention,
 so are these Anagran routers truly less expensive?

 --
 Jason 'XenoPhage' Frisvold
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 http://blog.godshell.com



Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Scott Brim

On 25 Oct 2007 at 17:02 -0400, Jason Frisvold allegedly wrote:
 Anyone have any experience with these Anagran flow routers?  Are they
 that much of a departure from traditional routing that it makes a big
 difference?

There's no difference in routing per se.  Rather it's in-band
signaling of QoS parameters to provide feedback to queue management.

 I haven't done a lot of research into flow-based routing
 at this point, but it sounds like this would be similar to the MPLS
 approach, no?

There is no setup phase.  Signaling is in-band and periodic.  The
theory is that every once in a while a control packets is sent, with
the same src/dst as the regular data packets.  Whatever paths the
packets take, the control packets will take the same paths.


Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Joel Jaeggli

Paul Vixie wrote:
 Dr. Larry Roberts, co-founder of the ARPANET and inventor of packet
 switching, predicts the Internet is headed for a major crisis in an article
 published on the Internet Evolution web site today. Internet traffic is now
 growing much more quickly than the rate at which router cost is decreasing,
 Roberts says. At current growth levels, the cost of deploying Internet
 capacity to handle new services like social networking, gaming, video, VOIP,
 and digital entertainment will double every three years, he predicts, creating
 an economic crisis. Of course, Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran
 Inc., which makes a technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims,
 will solve all of the world's routing problems in one go.
 
 http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1643248

So I seem to recall flow cached l3 switches being rather common. ;)

Over here in the firewall business we offload flows from the firewall
policy enforcement engine into flow cached forwarding engines. In both
cases (switch/firewall) you trade one expense (fib lookups) with another
(keeping track of flow state for the purposes of forwarding). Since
statefull inspection firewalls have to track flow state anyway paying
the flow state tax is a built in assumption.

The problem of flow cached switches was the first packet hitting the
processor from each flow. Most of the flows are rather short so the
processor ended up with more than it's share of the heavy lifting for
the prevailing internet style traffic workloads. I suppose if one pushed
flow caches down into the forwarding engines of current router asics you
could reap the benefits of not performing a longest match match lookup
on every packet, though mostly you just have another look aside
interface and yet more memory contributing additional complexity that's
poorly utilized in worse case workloads...


Like I said if you're buying a firewall or a load balancer you probably
get to pay this tax anyway, but the core router customer voted with
their wallets a while ago, and while revisiting the issue occasionally
is probably worth it I wouldn't expect flow caching to be the revolution
that got everyone to swap out their gear.



Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Andrew Odlyzko

Isn't this same Dr. Larry Roberts who 5 years ago was claiming, based
on data from the 19 largest ISPs, or something like that, that Internet
traffic was growing 4x each year, and so the world should rush to order
his latest toys (from Caspian Networks, at that time)?

  http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/roberts.caspian.txt

All the evidence points to the growth rate at that time being around 2x
per year.  And now Larry Roberts claims that current Internet traffic
is around 2x per year, while there is quite a bit of evidence that the
correct figure is closer to 1.5x per year,

  http://www.dtc.umn.edu/mints

Andrew Odlyzko




   On Thu Oct 25, Alex Pilosov wrote:

  On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Paul Vixie wrote:
   
   Dr. Larry Roberts, co-founder of the ARPANET and inventor of packet
   switching, predicts the Internet is headed for a major crisis in an
   article published on the Internet Evolution web site today. Internet
   traffic is now growing much more quickly than the rate at which router
   cost is decreasing, Roberts says. At current growth levels, the cost of
   deploying Internet capacity to handle new services like social
   networking, gaming, video, VOIP, and digital entertainment will double
   every three years, he predicts, creating an economic crisis. Of course,
   Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran Inc., which makes a
   technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims, will solve
   all of the world's routing problems in one go.
   
   http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1643248
  I don't know, this is mildly offtopic (aka, not very operational) but the
  article made me giggle a few times.

  a) It resembles too much of Bob Metcalfe predicting the death of the
  Internet. We all remember how that went (wasn't there NANOG tshirt with 
  Bob eating his hat?)

  b) In the words of Randy Bush, We tried this 10 years ago, and it didn't 
  work then. Everyone was doing flow-based routing back in '90-95 (cat6k 
  sup1, gsr e0, first riverstoned devices, foundry ironcore, etc). Then, 
  everyone figured out that it does not scale (tm Vijay Gill) and went to 
  tcam-based architectures (for hardware platforms) or cef-like based 
  architectures for software platforms. In either case, performance doesn't 
  depend on flows/second, but only packets/second.

  Huge problem with flow-based routing is susceptibility to ddos (or
  abnormal traffic patterns). It doesn't matter that your device can route
  1mpps of normal traffic if it croaks under 10kpps of ddos (or
  codered/nimda/etc).

  -alex [not mlc anything]

  [mlc]




Re: ARPANet Co-Founder Predicts An Internet Crisis (slashdot)

2007-10-25 Thread Leigh Porter


A friend of mine who is a Jehova's Witness read something about the
Internet and the end of the world in Watchtower recently. Could it be
the same thing do you think?

Perhaps they got it right this time?

--
Leigh Porter



Andrew Odlyzko wrote:
 Isn't this same Dr. Larry Roberts who 5 years ago was claiming, based
 on data from the 19 largest ISPs, or something like that, that Internet
 traffic was growing 4x each year, and so the world should rush to order
 his latest toys (from Caspian Networks, at that time)?

   http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/roberts.caspian.txt

 All the evidence points to the growth rate at that time being around 2x
 per year.  And now Larry Roberts claims that current Internet traffic
 is around 2x per year, while there is quite a bit of evidence that the
 correct figure is closer to 1.5x per year,

   http://www.dtc.umn.edu/mints

 Andrew Odlyzko




On Thu Oct 25, Alex Pilosov wrote:

   On Thu, 25 Oct 2007, Paul Vixie wrote:

Dr. Larry Roberts, co-founder of the ARPANET and inventor of packet
switching, predicts the Internet is headed for a major crisis in an
article published on the Internet Evolution web site today. Internet
traffic is now growing much more quickly than the rate at which router
cost is decreasing, Roberts says. At current growth levels, the cost of
deploying Internet capacity to handle new services like social
networking, gaming, video, VOIP, and digital entertainment will double
every three years, he predicts, creating an economic crisis. Of course,
Roberts has an agenda. He's now CEO of Anagran Inc., which makes a
technology called flow-based routing that, Roberts claims, will solve
all of the world's routing problems in one go.

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/25/1643248
   I don't know, this is mildly offtopic (aka, not very operational) but the
   article made me giggle a few times.

   a) It resembles too much of Bob Metcalfe predicting the death of the
   Internet. We all remember how that went (wasn't there NANOG tshirt with 
   Bob eating his hat?)

   b) In the words of Randy Bush, We tried this 10 years ago, and it didn't 
   work then. Everyone was doing flow-based routing back in '90-95 (cat6k 
   sup1, gsr e0, first riverstoned devices, foundry ironcore, etc). Then, 
   everyone figured out that it does not scale (tm Vijay Gill) and went to 
   tcam-based architectures (for hardware platforms) or cef-like based 
   architectures for software platforms. In either case, performance doesn't 
   depend on flows/second, but only packets/second.

   Huge problem with flow-based routing is susceptibility to ddos (or
   abnormal traffic patterns). It doesn't matter that your device can route
   1mpps of normal traffic if it croaks under 10kpps of ddos (or
   codered/nimda/etc).

   -alex [not mlc anything]

   [mlc]