I would much rather go in the other direction: to stop peering with the T1
backbone and to rely on the crossover for all T1 only traffic.
This has several advantages:
- The next transition (disconnecting the T1) is a NOOP as far as most
sites are concerned.
- Conversly there will be a flag day when the T1 is turned off - can you
prove in advance that there will be no side effects?
- We (the mid-levels) can move on to simpler routing configurations now
- Merit can start to dismantle the fringes of the T1 backbone
- Simpler diagnosis, because fall back to the T1 will not confuse pingers
- Only a small subset of the T1 continues to be production critical to anyone.
- With your plan, other possible changes become more difficult becuase sites
can not stop peering w/ the T1.
- It motivates all people who MUST have the T1 to move on. The NSF is
spending a lot of money on T1 lines and electricity for NSSs
which could be better spent elsewhere: I bet just a few months
of bills will pay for the migration.
Disadvantages:
- It should wait until the all T1 safety tails are installed in the T3 backbone
Ours is scheduled for later this week.
- Lower performance to the remaing T1 only sites.
- Sites using clnp.....
Perhaps the decision can be made on a per site basis? How about just asking
all regionals to drop their T1 announcements from 3 or 4 AS's to 1 or 2?
Their choice...
--MM--