From: jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au (Jim Breen)
Subject: Re: Proposal: OSI Addressing on AARnet
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 01:05:16 GMT

G.Huston@aarnet.edu.au (Geoff Huston) writes:

>Mark Prior writes...

>> This is my proposal for running ISO protocols over AARNet. At present
>> I have a number of DECstations running DECnet/OSI using this scheme
>> and it seems to work OK.
>> 

>1. What is the level of demand for this switching capability within AARNet?

Probably low, but growing. The stuff we are doing with ISODE will soon be looking
for connectivity to other sites, and we expect AARNet to provide it. You may recall,
Geoff, in the the planning stages of AARNet I used to bore people about the need to 
provide OSI protocol switching, and the need for AARNet to commit to (eventually)
supprting it. I think the time has come.

>   
>2. NSAP AFI allocation

>   I note the Internet Society is eligible for an AFI allocation
>   (at _no_ charge) and evidently intends to obtain an AFI for Internet
>   use. What are the arguments in favour and against using a number space
>   from a nationally allocated AFI vs an Internet AFI

I can see a few arguments; greater address space, controllers of our own destiny, 
etc. AARNet is many things. It is part of the Internet, but it is also an 
*Australian* network, and for OSI protocols should be able to stand alone. I 
would turn your question around, and say that unless there were real advantages in
being part of the Internet AFI, we should be nationally allocated.

>3. NSAP address schema

>   I see frantic activity within various strands of the IETF to devise
>   a workable implementation of CLNP (or a derivative) which can
>   provide possible answers to the IP V4 problems that are emerging.

>   Is any national NSAP addressing strategy premature given the ernest
>   desire of the IETF groups to devise an Internet-wide NSAP numbering
>   strategy?

>   My question is not whether a geographic fixed length numbering
>   scheme is better ort worse than other possible Australian schemes -
>   it it whether a short delay may be better in order to evaluate the
>   output of the "IP V7" groups which are looking at NSAP allocation
>   schema across the entire Internet.

The problems in the Internet running out of addresses should not be a drag on
the use of OSI protocols. After all it has taken so damned long even to get to
this stage.

It is all to easy in academia and research to get a totally "TCP/IP" view of the
world of communications. I totally support the way AARNet has been constructed and
run, but I strongly resist any moves to lock it into the Internet for all its
protocols.

>Unlike ESnet or the NSFnet there is no funding or government mandated
>requirement to support OSI protocols within the production platform of
>the Australian national network. The criteria for such support are
>therefore more pragmatic considerations of:

>	level of demand

>	cost of provising the service

>	risks to overall reliability of service

>	compatibility with related efforts

You choose the words carefully, Geoff. True there is no "funding or government 
mandated  requirement to support OSI protocols", but our intention to do so
was writ large in our pleas for funds. The support from a number of Universities,
including this one, was influenced by that intention.

I don't think we can afford to walk away from OSI, even temporarily. A public
brawl about AARNet not supporting the protocols of the GOSIP initiative would be far
from helpful.

>Of all of these I would indicate that level of demand is perhaps the
>single deciding factor - which brings me back to comment 1:...

>   1. What is the level of demand for this switching capability within AARNet?

>(These are not "hostile" comments by any means - indeed setting up a
>switching capability for CLNP could be a lot of fun. But the aim and
>objective of the network is not to amuse Geoff and Pete - ultimately
>there has to be reasonable levels of justification for such activities,
>and it is only through this form of exchange that we can establish
>whether there is a real need for such a switching service on the
>network)

I suspect that

(a) if two or more institutions want to exchange CLNP packets

(b) if the ciscos can do it

it should be done. A request for funding of a new network to support CLNP because the
management of AARNet did not think the load was high enough to turn on that protocol
would be, to say the least, embarrassing.
-- 
Jim Breen                           JIS:$B%8%`!!%V%j!<%s(J
Department of Robotics & Digital Technology. Monash University. 
PO Box 197 Caulfield East VIC 3145 Australia (ph) +61 3 573 2552 
(fax) +61 3 573 2345  AARNet/Internet:jwb@capek.rdt.monash.edu.au  
Newsgroups: aus.aarnet