Mailing List Archive

Bob Metcalfe wrote:

>Note, I have never predicted "the death of the Internet," only catastrophic
>collapse(s) during 1996, which is "a good calibration" of the rest of your
>objections (below).

One does not need to be Nostradamus to predict that s*t happens.
It happened in the past, many times, too. Like when me and Sean
installed a just-baked SSE into a DC box and it looked fine but
screwed nearly all connectivity to Europe for few hours when we were
trying to figure out what was going on. Or when FIX-E<->ICM-DC
Bell Atlantic's DS-3 was flapping like mad when moon was
in the wrong phase and BA did nothing to fix it for months. Or when
some sequence of 1s and 0s was triggering some bulls*t alarms in
Sprint fiber network so causing shutdowns on the entire OC-24 trunk.
Or when a bogus static route in a Sprint's box was causing ANS's
version of gated to go banana and drop BGP sessions. Or many many
more occasions when "Bysantine-mode failure" becomes ugly reality in
the middle of the night so causing more than few people to be dragged
out of beds.

As long as Internet technology is freaking bleeding edge and operators
are in the "code of the day" club catastrophes are bound to happen.

>Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100
>engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that
>they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which
>is half our problem.

That is simply not true. The backbone engineering society is tightly
knit and quite often backbone engineers are simply personal friends.
I certainly never had a problem with people refusing to fix problems
within their domains (well, PSI's TWD is not an operational problem).
The organization-level corrdination is often broken at operators level,
but that is merely a function of severe shortage of qualified personnel
and inadequate compensation for the high-stress job.

>Settlements, "wrong on the face?" Or are you just too busy busy busy
>defensive to argue?

Before you talk of settlements answer the simple question --
a packet travelled from provider A to provider B. Who should pay
to whom? Then, please, stop perpetuating nonsense.

>So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
>whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
>ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
>store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?

I was in a backbone engineer's skin for quite a few years, and "hops"
per se never were a problem. In fact, store-and-forward delays are
a mere fraction of wire propagation delays -- do a traceroute coast-to-coast,
look at delays and calculate how it relates to distance divided by speed of light.
Indeed, you're the first person concerned with the growth of diameter
(which is, BTW, logarithmic to size of the network).

--vadim

Dear Jerry Whomever, (and NANOG)

Thanks for my first few clues (below) on how the Internet is actually
really run.

Note, I have never predicted "the death of the Internet," only catastrophic
collapse(s) during 1996, which is "a good calibration" of the rest of your
objections (below).

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100
engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that
they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which
is half our problem.

Now, NANOG -- not affiliated with anybody, you say, not even the Internet
Society. OK, I stand corrected. So, if not ISOC, who are IEPG and NANOG?
Do IEPG and NANOG have anything to do with one another? By the way, is
IETF not ISOC too? See www.isoc.org.

Settlements, "wrong on the face?" Or are you just too busy busy busy
defensive to argue?

So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?

Jerry, if you represent the engineers running the Internet, now I'm really
worried.

Thank you for sharing, stay tuned,

/Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld

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>
>You might want to note, that NANOG is not any kind of
>offical function of ISOC, or any other organization. Merit
>kindly helps provide resources to create a technical forum
>where issues are raised, and Network Operators learn
>about problems and fix them.
>
>Just because the chief engineers of the Internet don't report
>their problems to you, doesn't give you an excuse to go off.
>
>I don't think you even have a clue as to WHO, WHAT, or HOW
>the Internet is run.
>Your suggestion that traffic based settlements will do
>much of anything, other that create jobs for bean counters
>is just plan wrong of the face of it.
>
>Oh, and about Nanog, perhaps the reason it doesn't meet
>more often, is because the top 100 engineers running the
>net are busy working, so people like you can whine
>about outages, "increasing diameters", etc.
>
>
>>From todays NANOG List:
>-------------------------------------------------
>Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 20:08:03 -0500 (EST)
>To: nanog@merit.edu
>Subject: Metcalfe's clue density...
>Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
>Precedence: bulk
>
>
>the fact that he attributes the IEPG as an ISOC organization
>is a good calibration on everything else.
>
>just remember:
>
> "Imminent death of net predicted" ::= end of discussion
>
>soooo sorry. thanks for playing. good night.
>
> -mo


______________________________________________
______________________________________________

Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe
Executive Correspondent, InfoWorld and
VP Technology, International Data Group

Internet Messages: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
Voice Messages: 617-534-1215

Conference Chairman for
ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing
San Jose Convention Center
March 1-5, 1997
______________________________________________
______________________________________________

We have a business plan in place for doing exactly this, and a lot more.
It's pretty simple to do, with the right setup.

We have no intention of sellings ads on the page, though.

-David

>This is a good point. If there were a list somewhere which collated all
>of the trouble reports from all of the ISP's then some entrepreneur could
>set up an Internet traffic report WWW site and make all the mass of
>trouble reports palatable for end users, including stories about ladies
>in Lincolns.
>
>This entrepreneur could get rich selling ads on their WWW site and
>everyone would know what is going on.
>
>> Now, NANOG -- not affiliated with anybody, you say, not even the Internet
>> Society. OK, I stand corrected. So, if not ISOC, who are IEPG and NANOG?
>> Do IEPG and NANOG have anything to do with one another? By the way, is
>> IETF not ISOC too? See www.isoc.org.
>
>Even though I know how all this came about and how groups like NANOG
>operate (what group!) I still don't believe it when people say that NANOG
>doesn't set policy and NANOG is not affiliated with anybody. The fact is
>that NANOG appears to set policy and NANOG appears to be affiliated with
>somebody and that appearance is what counts until NANOG pipes up and
>states what their official policy and official affiliations are.
>
>> Settlements, "wrong on the face?" Or are you just too busy busy busy
>> defensive to argue?
>
>Settlements are contrary to NANOG policy. It is also contrary to NANOG
>policy to engage in long drawn out debates about things which have
>already been decided, like "settlements are wrong". The policy is
>unwritten and to a certain extent, non-verbal, but it is policy nevertheless.
>
>> So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
>> whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
>> ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
>> store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?
>
>I have had to explain to ISP's how to do email relaying so that their
>customers can get email back and forth from fringe locations. It's
>usually an asymmetrical problem so it shows up when a person can receive
>email but cannot send a reply.
>
>BTW, the trick is to address it like this joe%farawayplace.com@majorhub.com
>
>
>Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
>Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
>http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com
>
>
>

Bob writes:

> Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100
> engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that
> they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which
> is half our problem.

Actually, there has been some work done on this. There was a NSFNET Trouble
Ticket standard developed by the RAC. The report is available as a pdf file
from this URL: ftp://ftp.academ.com/pub/misc/troublet.pdf. Unfortunately,
shortly after this work was done, the NSFNET ceased to exist.

> So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
> whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
> ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
> store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?

I'd like to encourage you to discuss this issue specifically. I am writing
an Internet-Draft on end-system management issues in the face of the
explosive growth of the Internet and this is one of the ones I am
writing about. Your views would be most welcome in developing this document.


--
Stan | Academ Consulting Services |internet: sob@academ.com
Olan | For more info on academ, see this |uucp: {mcsun|amdahl}!academ!sob
Barber | URL- http://www.academ.com/academ |Opinions expressed are only mine.

In reply to your message of Tue, 02 Apr 1996 16:46:01 PST:
| Even though I know how all this came about and how groups like NANOG
| operate (what group!) I still don't believe it when people say that NANOG
| doesn't set policy and NANOG is not affiliated with anybody. The fact is
| that NANOG appears to set policy and NANOG appears to be affiliated with
| somebody and that appearance is what counts until NANOG pipes up and
| states what their official policy and official affiliations are.

Machiavelli said it best: "For the great majority of mankind is concerned
with appearances, as though they were realities, and prefers to deal with the
things that seem, rather than those that are".

The *fact* is that NANOG is not affiliated and does not set any policy.

| Settlements are contrary to NANOG policy. It is also contrary to NANOG
| policy to engage in long drawn out debates about things which have
| already been decided, like "settlements are wrong". The policy is
| unwritten and to a certain extent, non-verbal, but it is policy nevertheless.

As a director of mine once said: "A policy is a written document that is binding
in some fashion among one or more parties. If it's not in writing, it's a
philosophy, not a policy." NANOG participants practice, to a greater or
lesser extent, certain philosophies, and actualize certain mindsets, in
their interactions and exchanges of information. This is not policy nor the
setting of policy, even if NANOG members do set and implement policy in other
venues.

| BTW, the trick is to address it like this joe%farawayplace.com@majorhub.com

And just to reciprocate on the distribution of clues, take the policy buck
to InterNIC, the FCC, or the other regulatory body of your choice, not to NANOG.

Also, from your other message:

| You may not like the eyes of the world to be looking at you, but the fact
| is that those eyes are going to be looking at you more and more as the
| Internet grows in importance and people get curious at how it really works.

Then the world will continue to be frustrated by a group of people whose
interaction in this forum deals with technical realities rather than
politically correct appearances.

'Nuff said.
<donning the asbestos suit...>
Rgrds,
Paul
***definitely speaking solely for myself this time!***

Paul "Corwin" Frommeyer
Work Internet Engineer, CCIE Play
ISP Systems Engineer Network Sorcerer At Large
Cisco Systems, Inc. Paul's Fone Company
pfrommey@cisco.com corwin@palas.com
*** Speaking solely for myself unless otherwise noted ***

Bob Metcalfe wrote:

>Perhaps I am confusing terms here. How can it be a fact that
>"store-and-forward delays are a mere fraction of wire propagation delays?"
>I don't think so. Check me on this:

>Packets travel over wires at large fractions of the speed of light, but
>then sadly at each hop they must be received, checked, routed, and then
>queued for forwarding. Do I have that right?

Not "checked". Nobody computes checksums in gateways for transit packets.
Updating hopcount doesn't require recalculation of IP checksum, it can
be done incrementally (there was an RFC to that effect, don't remember which).

>Forget checking, routing, and queueing (ha!), and you get, I think, that
>store and forward delay is roughly proportional to the number of hops times
>packet length divided by circuit speed (N*P/C).

Wrong. This is oversimplification, as slow tail-links consume bulk of
time. This is very comparable to going 90% of the way at 100mph and 10%
at 10mph -- what is the average speed? Right, that's 52.6 mph. Note
that 10% of the way slows down everything by a half.

>But at 30 hops of thousand byte packets at T1 speeds, that's, what? 4,000
>miles of prop delay. A mere fraction?

You won't find 30 hops at T-1 in the real life no matter how hard you
try. It's more like Ethernet-T1-FDDI-T3-FDDI-T3-T3-FDDI-T3-FDDI-T1-Ethernet-
T0-Ethernet. And, BTW, the average size of packet on Internet is 200 bytes.

Store-and-forward of 200-byte packet is 60 microseconds with T-3 wire
which is about 5 miles at light speed.

Moreover, large packets occur in bulk transfers, where sliding windows
are efficient -- to the effect that you see the delay only once, when you do
initial TCP handshake.

>But of course, getting back to 1996, N*P/C doesn't count checking, routing,
>and queueing -- queueing gets to be a major multiple with loading.

Queueing Theory 101 is recommended. If incoming traffic in G/D/1 system
is less than capacity the average queue size is less than 1. If load is more
than capacity the average queue size is infinity.

I.e. the delay in network in case of congestion depends on size of buffers
along the path, and not number of hops, period. The "best" size of buffers is
choosen to accomodate transient congestions, i.e. determined from bandwidth*delay
product ("delay" here is RTT). I.e. in properly tuned network the congestion
delay is about 2 times "ideal" RTT plus something to accomodate topological
irregularities. RED (by VJ and co.) allows to reduce size of congestion buffers
by about 1/2 because it actively anticipates congestions instead of acting
when they already happened as tail-drop does.

And, BTW, with IP you can skip the "store" part, too; you only need to look
at IP header to make a routing decision. The rest you can simply channel thru.

>Oh, I forgot retransmission delays too, at each hop.

What's that? IP does not do any retransmissions between gateways.

>And I forgot the increasing
>complications of route propagation as hops increase...

He-he. That is far from being as simple as you think. Topology means
a lot more than the diameter for complexity of routing computations.

>If I am, as you say, the first person to be concerned with the growth of
>Internet diameter, which I doubt, then I deserve a medal. Or is my
>arithmetic wrong? Ease my cluelessness.

You seem to offer opinions with little or no checking of background
facts. I bet you're a victim of Flame Delay crowd propaganda. I
certainly heard that line of reasoning from them, got a good laugh, too.

As for cluelessness -- i already noted that diameter grows as a logarithm
of network size, while bandwidth grows at least as linear to the size.
That means that the fraction of "store-and-forward" penalty in the end-to-end
delays is diminishing as network grows. So not only you're worrying about
insignificant thing, you appear concerned with something which actually
improves with scale!

--vadim

Dear Mr. Antonov,

Thanks for taking time to enter this little spat about Internet collapses,
the growing importance of NANOG, and my cluelessness.

You wrote:

>I was in a backbone engineer's skin for quite a few years, and "hops"
>per se never were a problem. In fact, store-and-forward delays are
>a mere fraction of wire propagation delays -- do a traceroute coast-to-coast,
>look at delays and calculate how it relates to distance divided by speed of
>light. Indeed, you're the first person concerned with the growth of diameter
>(which is, BTW, logarithmic to size of the network).

Perhaps I am confusing terms here. How can it be a fact that
"store-and-forward delays are a mere fraction of wire propagation delays?"
I don't think so. Check me on this:

Packets travel over wires at large fractions of the speed of light, but
then sadly at each hop they must be received, checked, routed, and then
queued for forwarding. Do I have that right?

Forget checking, routing, and queueing (ha!), and you get, I think, that
store and forward delay is roughly proportional to the number of hops times
packet length divided by circuit speed (N*P/C).

For 10 hops of a thousand bit packet at Ethernet speed, that would be 1 ms,
or a couple hundred miles of prop delay. Check me on this, one of us might
be off by several orders of magnitude.

But at 30 hops of thousand byte packets at T1 speeds, that's, what? 4,000
miles of prop delay. A mere fraction?

OK, maybe soon the entire Internet backbone(s) will be ATM at 622Mbps,
which would certainly knock some of the wind out of N, P, and C. Soon?

But of course, getting back to 1996, N*P/C doesn't count checking, routing,
and queueing -- queueing gets to be a major multiple with loading. Oh, I
forgot retransmission delays too, at each hop. And I forgot the increasing
complications of route propagation as hops increase...

If I am, as you say, the first person to be concerned with the growth of
Internet diameter, which I doubt, then I deserve a medal. Or is my
arithmetic wrong? Ease my cluelessness.

/Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld

At 6:44 PM 4/2/96, Vadim Antonov wrote:
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>From: avg@postman.ncube.com (Vadim Antonov)
>Message-Id: <9604030240.AA02534@butler.ncube.com>
>To: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com, jerry@fc.net
>Subject: RE: NANOG
>Cc: letters@infoworld.com, nanog@merit.edu
>Content-Length: 2913
>
>Bob Metcalfe wrote:
>
>>Note, I have never predicted "the death of the Internet," only catastrophic
>>collapse(s) during 1996, which is "a good calibration" of the rest of your
>>objections (below).
>
>One does not need to be Nostradamus to predict that s*t happens.
>It happened in the past, many times, too. Like when me and Sean
>installed a just-baked SSE into a DC box and it looked fine but
>screwed nearly all connectivity to Europe for few hours when we were
>trying to figure out what was going on. Or when FIX-E<->ICM-DC
>Bell Atlantic's DS-3 was flapping like mad when moon was
>in the wrong phase and BA did nothing to fix it for months. Or when
>some sequence of 1s and 0s was triggering some bulls*t alarms in
>Sprint fiber network so causing shutdowns on the entire OC-24 trunk.
>Or when a bogus static route in a Sprint's box was causing ANS's
>version of gated to go banana and drop BGP sessions. Or many many
>more occasions when "Bysantine-mode failure" becomes ugly reality in
>the middle of the night so causing more than few people to be dragged
>out of beds.
>
>As long as Internet technology is freaking bleeding edge and operators
>are in the "code of the day" club catastrophes are bound to happen.
>
>>Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100
>>engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that
>>they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which
>>is half our problem.
>
>That is simply not true. The backbone engineering society is tightly
>knit and quite often backbone engineers are simply personal friends.
>I certainly never had a problem with people refusing to fix problems
>within their domains (well, PSI's TWD is not an operational problem).
>The organization-level corrdination is often broken at operators level,
>but that is merely a function of severe shortage of qualified personnel
>and inadequate compensation for the high-stress job.
>
>>Settlements, "wrong on the face?" Or are you just too busy busy busy
>>defensive to argue?
>
>Before you talk of settlements answer the simple question --
>a packet travelled from provider A to provider B. Who should pay
>to whom? Then, please, stop perpetuating nonsense.
>
>>So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
>>whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
>>ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
>>store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?
>
>I was in a backbone engineer's skin for quite a few years, and "hops"
>per se never were a problem. In fact, store-and-forward delays are
>a mere fraction of wire propagation delays -- do a traceroute coast-to-coast,
>look at delays and calculate how it relates to distance divided by speed of
>light.
>Indeed, you're the first person concerned with the growth of diameter
>(which is, BTW, logarithmic to size of the network).
>
>--vadim


______________________________________________
______________________________________________

Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe
Executive Correspondent, InfoWorld and
VP Technology, International Data Group

Internet Messages: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
Voice Messages: 617-534-1215

Conference Chairman for
ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing
San Jose Convention Center
March 1-5, 1997
______________________________________________
______________________________________________

bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com (Bob Metcalfe) wrote:
Perhaps I am confusing terms here. How can it be a fact that
"store-and-forward delays are a mere fraction of wire propagation delays?"
I don't think so. Check me on this:

Packets travel over wires at large fractions of the speed of light, but
then sadly at each hop they must be received, checked, routed, and then
queued for forwarding. Do I have that right?

Forget checking, routing, and queueing (ha!), and you get, I think, that
store and forward delay is roughly proportional to the number of hops times
packet length divided by circuit speed (N*P/C).

For 10 hops of a thousand bit packet at Ethernet speed, that would be 1 ms,
or a couple hundred miles of prop delay. Check me on this, one of us might
be off by several orders of magnitude.



Hmm...

Using a real in use backbone of one of the mayor service providers,
I find that a DS3 between silicon valley to Chicago has a 44 msec
latency going through 4 hops. That's about the speed of light in
fiber for the 5000 mile roundtrip ICMP ping packets.

Using ATM will reduce the router latency. I estimate that with TCP/IP
over ATM over SONET OC-3c the latency will be reduced from 44 msec
to 40 msec, only a rather small improvement. The bandwidth used on the
fiber wont matter much. With OC-12c I would still expect 40 msec or so
since the speed of light in fiber is the limiting factor.


Wolfgang

whoa,

After all that, I knew IP/ATM had to show up somewhere! ;-)

Marc

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Wolfgang Henke wrote:

>
> bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com (Bob Metcalfe) wrote:
> Perhaps I am confusing terms here. How can it be a fact that
> "store-and-forward delays are a mere fraction of wire propagation delays?"
> I don't think so. Check me on this:
>
> Packets travel over wires at large fractions of the speed of light, but
> then sadly at each hop they must be received, checked, routed, and then
> queued for forwarding. Do I have that right?
>
> Forget checking, routing, and queueing (ha!), and you get, I think, that
> store and forward delay is roughly proportional to the number of hops times
> packet length divided by circuit speed (N*P/C).
>
> For 10 hops of a thousand bit packet at Ethernet speed, that would be 1 ms,
> or a couple hundred miles of prop delay. Check me on this, one of us might
> be off by several orders of magnitude.
>
>
>
> Hmm...
>
> Using a real in use backbone of one of the mayor service providers,
> I find that a DS3 between silicon valley to Chicago has a 44 msec
> latency going through 4 hops. That's about the speed of light in
> fiber for the 5000 mile roundtrip ICMP ping packets.
>
> Using ATM will reduce the router latency. I estimate that with TCP/IP
> over ATM over SONET OC-3c the latency will be reduced from 44 msec
> to 40 msec, only a rather small improvement. The bandwidth used on the
> fiber wont matter much. With OC-12c I would still expect 40 msec or so
> since the speed of light in fiber is the limiting factor.
>
>
> Wolfgang
>
>

From my point of view (from my customers' point of view) the Internet in
the US is failing right now. It hasn't collapsed, but some parts are almost
unusable due to congestion. I think lots of people are working hard to
improve that situation and I do think it will get better over time (and
then it will get worse again and better and ..., just as it has in the
past). I do think communication about who is doing what, could be better.
I say this as a customer of an NSP (MCI) as well as an NSP manager myself
(MichNet a regional network in Michigan).

So I agree with Bob a lot more than I agree with Jerry or -mo.

-Jeff Ogden
Merit/MichNet (the non-RA half of Merit)


At 4:55 PM 4/2/96, Bob Metcalfe wrote:
>Dear Jerry Whomever, (and NANOG)
>
>Thanks for my first few clues (below) on how the Internet is actually
>really run.
>
>Note, I have never predicted "the death of the Internet," only catastrophic
>collapse(s) during 1996, which is "a good calibration" of the rest of your
>objections (below).
>
>Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100
>engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that
>they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which
>is half our problem.
>
>Now, NANOG -- not affiliated with anybody, you say, not even the Internet
>Society. OK, I stand corrected. So, if not ISOC, who are IEPG and NANOG?
>Do IEPG and NANOG have anything to do with one another? By the way, is
>IETF not ISOC too? See www.isoc.org.
>
>Settlements, "wrong on the face?" Or are you just too busy busy busy
>defensive to argue?
>
>So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
>whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
>ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
>store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?
>
>Jerry, if you represent the engineers running the Internet, now I'm really
>worried.
>
>Thank you for sharing, stay tuned,
>
>/Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld
>
>>Received: by ccmail from lserver.infoworld.com
>>>From jerry@fc.net
>>X-Envelope-From: jerry@fc.net
>>Received: from largo.remailer.net by lserver.infoworld.com with smtp
>> (Smail3.1.29.1 #12) id m0u4BbH-000wsjC; Tue, 2 Apr 96 11:18 PST
>>Received: from durango.remailer.net (durango.remailer.net [204.94.187.35]) by
>>largo.remailer.net (8.6.8/8.6.6) with SMTP id KAA23296 for
>><bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com>; Tue, 2 Apr 1996 10:40:40 -0800
>>Message-ID: <316175BF.1E79@fc.net>
>>Date: Tue, 02 Apr 1996 10:45:19 -0800
>>From: jerry <jerry@fc.net>
>>X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01Gold (Win95; I)
>>MIME-Version: 1.0
>>To: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
>>Subject: RE: NANOG
>>X-URL: http://www.infoworld.com/pageone/opinions/metcalfe.htm
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>
>>You might want to note, that NANOG is not any kind of
>>offical function of ISOC, or any other organization. Merit
>>kindly helps provide resources to create a technical forum
>>where issues are raised, and Network Operators learn
>>about problems and fix them.
>>
>>Just because the chief engineers of the Internet don't report
>>their problems to you, doesn't give you an excuse to go off.
>>
>>I don't think you even have a clue as to WHO, WHAT, or HOW
>>the Internet is run.
>>Your suggestion that traffic based settlements will do
>>much of anything, other that create jobs for bean counters
>>is just plan wrong of the face of it.
>>
>>Oh, and about Nanog, perhaps the reason it doesn't meet
>>more often, is because the top 100 engineers running the
>>net are busy working, so people like you can whine
>>about outages, "increasing diameters", etc.
>>
>>
>>>From todays NANOG List:
>>-------------------------------------------------
>>Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 20:08:03 -0500 (EST)
>>To: nanog@merit.edu
>>Subject: Metcalfe's clue density...
>>Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
>>Precedence: bulk
>>
>>
>>the fact that he attributes the IEPG as an ISOC organization
>>is a good calibration on everything else.
>>
>>just remember:
>>
>> "Imminent death of net predicted" ::= end of discussion
>>
>>soooo sorry. thanks for playing. good night.
>>
>> -mo
>
>
>______________________________________________
>______________________________________________
>
>Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe
>Executive Correspondent, InfoWorld and
>VP Technology, International Data Group
>
>Internet Messages: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
>Voice Messages: 617-534-1215
>
>Conference Chairman for
>ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing
>San Jose Convention Center
>March 1-5, 1997
>______________________________________________
>______________________________________________

Obviously, we need to find some faster light.

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Wolfgang Henke wrote:

> Hmm...
>
> Using a real in use backbone of one of the mayor service providers,
> I find that a DS3 between silicon valley to Chicago has a 44 msec
> latency going through 4 hops. That's about the speed of light in
> fiber for the 5000 mile roundtrip ICMP ping packets.
>
> Using ATM will reduce the router latency. I estimate that with TCP/IP
> over ATM over SONET OC-3c the latency will be reduced from 44 msec
> to 40 msec, only a rather small improvement. The bandwidth used on the
> fiber wont matter much. With OC-12c I would still expect 40 msec or so
> since the speed of light in fiber is the limiting factor.
>
>
> Wolfgang
>
>

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Jeff Ogden wrote:

> >From my point of view (from my customers' point of view) the Internet in
> the US is failing right now. It hasn't collapsed, but some parts are almost
> unusable due to congestion.

IMHO a good portion of this is due to overstressed WWW servers and/or
undersized links to very popular WWW server sites. This is not a network
problem, per se, it is a problem caused by and solvable by the people who
operate very popular WWW server sites. One site that is getting worse and
worse is http://www.zdnet.com which carries things like MacWeek and PCWeek.

> I think lots of people are working hard to
> improve that situation and I do think it will get better over time (and
> then it will get worse again and better and ..., just as it has in the
> past). I do think communication about who is doing what, could be better.

Classic problems caused by stupendously amazing growth rates....

P.S. have a look at http://www.interop.com/metcalfe.html if you want to
read an interesting retrospective by Bob Metcalfe.

Michael Dillon Voice: +1-604-546-8022
Memra Software Inc. Fax: +1-604-546-3049
http://www.memra.com E-mail: michael@memra.com

I've already had, others far more qualified tthat me, come to my
defense, since you so kindly eply to my private email in a
public forum.

I didn't make the "death of the internet" comment, check
your attributions.

As top the top 100 cheief engineers, assuming for a moment that 100
number is something more than a number I pulled out of thin air., With
your comments to Nanog you are probably addressing half.
>
>Dear Jerry Whomever, (and NANOG)
>
>Thanks for my first few clues (below) on how the Internet is actually
>really run.
>
>Note, I have never predicted "the death of the Internet," only catastrophic
>collapse(s) during 1996, which is "a good calibration" of the rest of your
>objections (below).
>
>Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, the problem is not that the Internet's chief 100
>engineers, whoever they are, fail to report their problems to me, it's that
>they (you?) fail to report them to anybody, including to each other, which
>is half our problem.

They do report them to each other. Your assertion
is without basis in fact.

>Now, NANOG -- not affiliated with anybody, you say, not even the Internet
>Society. OK, I stand corrected. So, if not ISOC, who are IEPG and NANOG?
>Do IEPG and NANOG have anything to do with one another? By the way, is
>IETF not ISOC too? See www.isoc.org.

For info on nanog, check http://www.merit.edu.
I don't have time to give you a detail history of how ISOC and IETF, IANA,
US DOD, ARPA, NSFNET, NSF etc all interrelate, but there are a number of good
papers on it.

>Settlements, "wrong on the face?" Or are you just too busy busy busy
>defensive to argue?

Well, I am quite busy, but as far as I know, there are exactly
2 people on the planet earth, that are studing economics of Internet
service. I'd be more than hjappy to send you a pre-release of my paper
on economics of route filtering. Yakov would be happy to send
you some of his stuff too.

>So, you say, increasing Internet diameters (hops) are only of concern to
>whiners like me? There are no whiners LIKE me. I am THE whiner. And hops
>ARE a first class problem, Jerry, or are you clueless about how
>store-and-forward packet switching actually really works?

I know how CIsco routers do IP. I know I've seen the failure modes
and patholgies, up close and personal. I've seen the real limits
that are causing the problems you are seeing today. And its not Hop count.
Only thing I've ever break due to hop count, is software/hardware
that doesn't conform to modern RFCs. And then only in a small minority
of cases, with long leaf paths off MCIs network. (MCI's network
has more hops than some, and a number of MCI customers are regional
networks themselves, which increases the complexity.)

>Jerry, if you represent the engineers running the Internet, now I'm really
>worried.

If you represent the PHDs designing the hardware I had
to run my parts of the Internet on, I'd be worried.

I'd be happy of the "profesional" press could get basic facts right
and publicly post corrections when they are caught red handed.

The folks of Nanog do have accountablilty to our customers,
unlike these so called journalists that post accusations,
without making the slighest effort to check the basic facts.

>Thank you for sharing, stay tuned,
>
>/Bob Metcalfe, InfoWorld
>
>>Received: by ccmail from lserver.infoworld.com
>>>From jerry@fc.net
>>X-Envelope-From: jerry@fc.net
>>Received: from largo.remailer.net by lserver.infoworld.com with smtp
>> (Smail3.1.29.1 #12) id m0u4BbH-000wsjC; Tue, 2 Apr 96 11:18 PST
>>Received: from durango.remailer.net (durango.remailer.net [204.94.187.35]) by
>>largo.remailer.net (8.6.8/8.6.6) with SMTP id KAA23296 for
>><bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com>; Tue, 2 Apr 1996 10:40:40 -0800
>>Message-ID: <316175BF.1E79@fc.net>
>>Date: Tue, 02 Apr 1996 10:45:19 -0800
>>From: jerry <jerry@fc.net>
>>X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01Gold (Win95; I)
>>MIME-Version: 1.0
>>To: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
>>Subject: RE: NANOG
>>X-URL: http://www.infoworld.com/pageone/opinions/metcalfe.htm
>>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>
>>You might want to note, that NANOG is not any kind of
>>offical function of ISOC, or any other organization. Merit
>>kindly helps provide resources to create a technical forum
>>where issues are raised, and Network Operators learn
>>about problems and fix them.
>>
>>Just because the chief engineers of the Internet don't report
>>their problems to you, doesn't give you an excuse to go off.
>>
>>I don't think you even have a clue as to WHO, WHAT, or HOW
>>the Internet is run.
>>Your suggestion that traffic based settlements will do
>>much of anything, other that create jobs for bean counters
>>is just plan wrong of the face of it.
>>
>>Oh, and about Nanog, perhaps the reason it doesn't meet
>>more often, is because the top 100 engineers running the
>>net are busy working, so people like you can whine
>>about outages, "increasing diameters", etc.
>>
>>
>>>From todays NANOG List:
>>-------------------------------------------------
>>Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 20:08:03 -0500 (EST)
>>To: nanog@merit.edu
>>Subject: Metcalfe's clue density...
>>Sender: owner-nanog@merit.edu
>>Precedence: bulk
>>
>>
>>the fact that he attributes the IEPG as an ISOC organization
>>is a good calibration on everything else.
>>
>>just remember:
>>
>> "Imminent death of net predicted" ::= end of discussion
>>
>>soooo sorry. thanks for playing. good night.
>>
>> -mo
>
>
>______________________________________________
>______________________________________________
>
>Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe
>Executive Correspondent, InfoWorld and
>VP Technology, International Data Group
>
>Internet Messages: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
>Voice Messages: 617-534-1215
>
>Conference Chairman for
>ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing
>San Jose Convention Center
>March 1-5, 1997
>______________________________________________
>______________________________________________
>
>
>
>
>


--
Jeremy Porter, Freeside Communications, Inc. jerry@fc.net
PO BOX 80315 Austin, Tx 78708 | 1-800-968-8750 | 512-339-6094
http://www.fc.net

On Thu, 4 Apr 1996, Jeremy Porter wrote:

> As top the top 100 cheief engineers, assuming for a moment that 100
> number is something more than a number I pulled out of thin air., With
> your comments to Nanog you are probably addressing half.

Bob Metcalfe is just another example of a computer journalist caught up
in the buzzwords of the current technology. It's sad to see such rubbish
in news, but hey, it's how they make the money. It's very disappointing
that he attempts to DEFEND his cluelessness against some of the BEST in
the industry.

Bob, I recommend you go back to covering hog prices for the local paper.

/cah

Dear Mr. Huegen,

Must say your below email about me was very upsetting.

What EXACTLY was "rubbish" in my recent InfoWorld column about NANOG etc?

/Bob Metcalfe

PS: You're confusing me with the other Bob Metcalfe, the one who writes
about hog prices.

At 8:44 AM 4/4/96, Craig A. Huegen wrote:
>Received: by ccmail from lserver.infoworld.com
>>From c-huegen@quad.quadrunner.com
>X-Envelope-From: c-huegen@quad.quadrunner.com
>Received: from quad.quadrunner.com by lserver.infoworld.com with smtp
> (Smail3.1.29.1 #12) id m0u4kt9-000wxUC; Thu, 4 Apr 96 00:59 PST
>Received: (from c-huegen@localhost) by quad.quadrunner.com (8.7.5/8.7-quad) id
>AAA04296; Thu, 4 Apr 1996 00:30:26 -0800
>Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 00:30:25 -0800 (PST)
>From: "Craig A. Huegen" <c-huegen@quad.quadrunner.com>
>To: Jeremy Porter <jerry@fc.net>
>cc: Bob Metcalfe <bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com>, jerry@fc.net,
> letters@infoworld.com, nanog@merit.edu
>Subject: Re: NANOG
>In-Reply-To: <199604040616.AAA04651@freeside.fc.net>
>Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.3.91.960404002814.4165B-100000@quad.quadrunner.com>
>MIME-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
>On Thu, 4 Apr 1996, Jeremy Porter wrote:
>
>> As top the top 100 cheief engineers, assuming for a moment that 100
>> number is something more than a number I pulled out of thin air., With
>> your comments to Nanog you are probably addressing half.
>
>Bob Metcalfe is just another example of a computer journalist caught up
>in the buzzwords of the current technology. It's sad to see such rubbish
>in news, but hey, it's how they make the money. It's very disappointing
>that he attempts to DEFEND his cluelessness against some of the BEST in
>the industry.
>
>Bob, I recommend you go back to covering hog prices for the local paper.
>
>/cah


______________________________________________
______________________________________________

Dr. Robert M. ("Bob") Metcalfe
Executive Correspondent, InfoWorld and
VP Technology, International Data Group

Internet Messages: bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com
Voice Messages: 617-534-1215

Conference Chairman for
ACM97: The Next 50 Years of Computing
San Jose Convention Center
March 1-5, 1997
______________________________________________
______________________________________________

On Apr 4, 14:25, Bob Metcalfe <bob_metcalfe@infoworld.com> wrote:
> Dear Mr. Huegen,
>
> Must say your below email about me was very upsetting.

Well, you haven't exactly taken this forum with storm either, have you?
In this forum you are directly addressing the people who deal with
Internet operations. And planning. And strategy. And whatnot.
The people here keep it working, and keep it growing, and they've
been doing that ever since the start. There are severe growing pains
in the Internet, but your story doesn't add anything of value to
whatever debate you can think of.

> What EXACTLY was "rubbish" in my recent InfoWorld column about NANOG etc?

Let's do a twist on your Internet story -- just three sentences, the
two first of which adequately paraphrase the amount of fact in it:

"The power utilities company reported that flooding had killed
primary and backup power to the region." "I picked up the telephone
to call them, but the line was out of order." "Let's all Question
Regulation."

The conclusion is somewhat the opposite of yours. But then, it
wasn't inspired by a bumper sticker.

--
------ ___ --- Per G. Bilse, Mgr Network Operations Ctr
----- / / / __ ___ _/_ ---- EUnet Communications Services B.V.
---- /--- / / / / /__/ / ----- Singel 540, 1017 AZ Amsterdam, NL
--- /___ /__/ / / /__ / ------ tel: +31 20 6233803, fax: +31 20 6224657
--- ------- 24hr emergency number: +31 20 421 0865
--- Connecting Europe since 1982 --- http://www.EU.net; e-mail: bilse@EU.net

Hank Nussbacher wrote:
>
>Craig came down very hard on Bob Metcalfe and I was hoping that over
>the past few days someone would step in and explain that Bob is far
>from being a clueless journalist. I believe Craig is just showing
>how young he is.

On my part, when i was flaming B.M. i was perfectly aware of who he
is. However, being an authority is not a guarantee of being right
or being clueful about that particular subject.

I happened to learn that hard way.

>Bob Metcalfe along with David Boggs published in
>ACM (July 1976) an article entitled "Ethernet - Distributed Packet
>Switching for Local Computer Networks". This paper was the groundwork
>for Ethernet - without which we would still be using X.25 and possibly
>no LANs.

That is an exaggregation. BTW, Ethernet has little to do with X.25's
obsolescense.

>Having Bob (as well as a few other heavyweights) on this list,
>we can only come to a better understanding of the routing, addressing
>and portability problems of the Internet that we are all hitting.

Hm.

>Craig, Bob has probably forgotten more than you and I will ever know.

I find the attitude of reverence to authorities a bit out of place
in any scientific or engineering society trying to be something more
than a country club.

--vadim

Craig came down very hard on Bob Metcalfe and I was hoping that over
the past few days someone would step in and explain that Bob is far
from being a clueless journalist. I believe Craig is just showing
how young he is. Bob Metcalfe along with David Boggs published in
ACM (July 1976) an article entitled "Ethernet - Distributed Packet
Switching for Local Computer Networks". This paper was the groundwork
for Ethernet - without which we would still be using X.25 and possibly
no LANs. Having Bob (as well as a few other heavyweights) on this list,
we can only come to a better understanding of the routing, addressing
and portability problems of the Internet that we are all hitting.

Craig, Bob has probably forgotten more than you and I will ever know.

On Saturday, April 06, 1996 12:25 PM, Hank Nussbacher[SMTP:hank@ibm.net.il] wrote:
@Craig came down very hard on Bob Metcalfe and I was hoping that over
@the past few days someone would step in and explain that Bob is far
@from being a clueless journalist. I believe Craig is just showing
@how young he is. Bob Metcalfe along with David Boggs published in
@ACM (July 1976) an article entitled "Ethernet - Distributed Packet
@Switching for Local Computer Networks". This paper was the groundwork
@for Ethernet - without which we would still be using X.25 and possibly
@no LANs. Having Bob (as well as a few other heavyweights) on this list,
@we can only come to a better understanding of the routing, addressing
@and portability problems of the Internet that we are all hitting.
@
@Craig, Bob has probably forgotten more than you and I will ever know.
@
@

Bob is a Dolphin...he can laugh all the way to the bank...he can swim free
of the fighting Cats and Dogs...Dogs do like to swim, but they have trouble
barking when they swim...Cats hate the water...:-)

...keep swimming Bob...:-)...keep laughing...every so often, you can stand
up on your tail and do the "Flipper" routine...the children should love it...
unfortunately, all they know how to do is stand on the shore and bark...:-)

...the Cats are watching the Dogs...the Dolphins have nothing to fear...

--
Jim Fleming
UNETY Systems, Inc.
Naperville, IL 60563

e-mail: JimFleming@unety.net

Agreed, to some extent. Mr. Metcalfe put his foot in his mouth
a couple of times with gross mis-statements, and would not back off.
Instead of listening to the practicing professionals, he threw his
legacy weight around. His contributions to the list may be wonderful,
but he has to get off of his high horse, first. Contrary to what it
seems like he thought, he will not set the tone here. Instead, he has
to listen to our tone, get into the groove, and work *with* us instead
of *against* us.

ed (probably one of the youngest here)

--
On Sat, 6 Apr 1996, Hank Nussbacher wrote:

> Craig came down very hard on Bob Metcalfe and I was hoping that over
> the past few days someone would step in and explain that Bob is far
> from being a clueless journalist. I believe Craig is just showing
> how young he is. Bob Metcalfe along with David Boggs published in
> ACM (July 1976) an article entitled "Ethernet - Distributed Packet
> Switching for Local Computer Networks". This paper was the groundwork
> for Ethernet - without which we would still be using X.25 and possibly
> no LANs. Having Bob (as well as a few other heavyweights) on this list,
> we can only come to a better understanding of the routing, addressing
> and portability problems of the Internet that we are all hitting.
>
> Craig, Bob has probably forgotten more than you and I will ever know.

On Sat, 6 Apr 1996, Vadim Antonov wrote:

> Hank Nussbacher wrote:
> >Craig came down very hard on Bob Metcalfe and I was hoping that over
> >the past few days someone would step in and explain that Bob is far
> >from being a clueless journalist. I believe Craig is just showing
> >how young he is.
>
> On my part, when i was flaming B.M. i was perfectly aware of who he
> is. However, being an authority is not a guarantee of being right
> or being clueful about that particular subject.

I strongly concur. Even though I am young, I still have studied a lot of
networking history. I knew who Bob Metcalfe was.

However, his InfoWorld article had some points which just made him look
like a complete newbie to this arena. He didn't do research, and
therefore looked like a Web-Magazine-of-the-Month editor, using buzzwords
and appearing to have no clue of what was really going on.

Take it as you please,
--Craig

On Sat, 6 Apr 1996 21:31:30 +0800 Vadim Antonov wrote:
>Hank Nussbacher wrote:
>>
>>Craig came down very hard on Bob Metcalfe and I was hoping that over
>>the past few days someone would step in and explain that Bob is far
>>from being a clueless journalist. I believe Craig is just showing
>>how young he is.
>
>On my part, when i was flaming B.M. i was perfectly aware of who he
>is. However, being an authority is not a guarantee of being right
>or being clueful about that particular subject.

My criticism was not directed to you but rather to Craig. Your response
to Bob was detailed and contained numbers. Craig's contained nothing and
did not add to the discussion but rather to the Noise Ratio.

>
>I happened to learn that hard way.
>
>>Bob Metcalfe along with David Boggs published in
>>ACM (July 1976) an article entitled "Ethernet - Distributed Packet
>>Switching for Local Computer Networks". This paper was the groundwork
>>for Ethernet - without which we would still be using X.25 and possibly
>>no LANs.
>
>That is an exaggregation. BTW, Ethernet has little to do with X.25's
>obsolescense.
>
>>Having Bob (as well as a few other heavyweights) on this list,
>>we can only come to a better understanding of the routing, addressing
>>and portability problems of the Internet that we are all hitting.
>
>Hm.
>
>>Craig, Bob has probably forgotten more than you and I will ever know.
>
>I find the attitude of reverence to authorities a bit out of place
>in any scientific or engineering society trying to be something more
>than a country club.

I am not saying to have blind reverence. Just listen and argue validity -
and if you can knock him down - fine by me as well as everyone else on the
list. But back up your comments with facts and numbers (as you did) rather
than comments of buzzwords and hog prices as Craig did.

>
>--vadim
>

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hank Nussbacher Manager, Internet Technology Programs
Telephone: +972 3 6978852 Vnet: HANK at TELVM1
Fax: +972 3 6978115 Internet: hank@ibm.net.il
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IBM Israel
2, Weizmann St.
Tel Aviv 61336 ====== ======= === ===
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Technical support: noc@ibm.net.il ====== ======= === ===
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Good for you, Per, and thanks for a well-phrased
reality check.

Mike Norris