[11022] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: ANS and the CIX - have they really connected?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Erik E. Fair" (Your Friendly Postm)
Fri Mar 18 07:18:41 1994
From: "Erik E. Fair" (Your Friendly Postmaster) <fair@apple.com>
In-Reply-To: <9403170635.aa23070@pandora.sf.ca.us>
To: cook@path.net (Gordon Cook)
Cc: com-priv@psi.com, washburn@cix.org
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 94 01:27:54 -0800
Gordon,
I have been making my observations by reading the Border
Gateway Protocol (BGP) Autonomous System (AS) paths that come to me
through CERFNET. My router is two hops away from the CIX (T1 SMDS to
CERFNET UCOP POP, T1 to CIX).
Because we are told that all CIX members:
1. connect to the CIX with a T1, and
2. speak BGP to the CIX for routing exchange,
I can look at my tables and tell you who is directly connected to the
CIX, which is what I did.
Not everyone with an AS number is an Internet Service Provider or
Regional Network. So once we get one AS hop away from the CIX, I can't
tell you doodly squat without knowing something more about the
organizations involved.
Apple Computer, for example, has three AS numbers, two of which are
visible in the Internet routing system: 714, 2709. Both Apple's AS
numbers appear in the CIX routing, but we are not a CIX member - we
don't need to be, because we are connected as a relatively simple IP
service customer to at least one regional that is a CIX member (as it
happens, *all* the NSP's that we do business with are CIX members).
Really, once you get one hop away, you just have to get the membership
list, cross check it against the list of AS's that are routed into the
CIX, and then do some educated guessing. That's what I did to be able
to state that SURANET, WESTNET, and NORTHWESTNET seemed to have set up
the same "ANS transit to the CIX" deal that BARRNET and NEARNET did -
I saw their routes in my tables coming through ANS to the CIX, and
guessed.
I was primarily interested in following up on the ANS/CIX routing
issue, because I want to see the entire commercial Internet
interconnected without an intervening non-commercial network or
transit. This would be good for everyone, and is long overdue.
Now it would seem that there is a new CIX issue. It strikes me that the
association should not care what its members are doing w.r.t. to
"resellers" or whatever you want to call them, but that's just my view.
Apparently, there is an ambiguity, and it seems that this ball has been
sitting the CIX's court for two and a half months. That is too long,
even if they have some hard thinking to do about it - they should at
least say that they have some hard thinking about the issue to do, and
give an estimated time for an answer. Not answering at all is not the
mark of a responsive organization.
To be fair, we may not have all the facts here yet. We have heard from
Ittai, speaking for ANS. Now it is the CIX association's turn to respond.
Erik E. Fair apple!fair fair@apple.com
