As some of you are probably aware, BARRNet is in the process of establishing
a connection to the CIX. While working out the details of how routing will
work between BARRNet member sites and customers/members of other CIX-connected
networks, I have run into some difficulty which may indicate a fundamental
problem for use of the CIX to interconnect research-oriented networks. In
short, I believe that such networks face a serious dilemma if they connect to
the CIX: how to provide unrestricted commercial-to-commercial access to the
CIX-reachable networks while at the same time providing optimal routing over
high-bandwidth NSFNET paths for research-oriented traffic. All, of course,
while not creating large amounts of management overhead or strange routing
anomalies. I would very much appreciate feedback from this community on the
enclosed message, which I originally sent to the CIX tech group. Of particular
interest to me is whether this group considers the assymetric routing which
would be engineered by my proposed "solution" to this dilemma to be an issue
and whether or not the "solution" would adequately address any NSFNET AUP
concerns (I use the world "solution" loosely as I am neither proud nor very
pleased with the described scheme).
Thanks,
Vince Fuller/BARRNet