Re: 2nd Root Server in Europe
On Sunday, 19 Jan 1997, Peter Lothberg writes:
Dear colleagues,
I have received an informal query from IANA about RIPE's opinion about the placement of a second root name server in Europe at the LINX operated by VBCnet. This should be discussed at the next meeting. Personally I think that placement at the LINX makes good sense because of current network topology.
Is that true ? We currently have
; formerly NIC.NORDU.NET ; . 3600000 NS I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. I.ROOT-SERVERS.NET. 3600000 A 192.36.148.17
in the north of Europe and according to above proposal a second root name server in the north of Europe, just one hop from one to the other. How about middle and south Europe ? Wouldn't it make sense to have at least one additional NS in these densely populated regions to provide better access times there ?
This is just a question, nothing more.
Daniel
Marcel Schneider@SWITCH
The geographic map does not apply, we have to look at the network topology map. (And please forget the political map to.)
If you look at network topology, you will find that the center of Europe is somwhere between NY and Washington DC, followed by Stockholm and London.
Ah, the center of Europe is between NY and Washington DC and that is reason enough to have _yet another server_ there. Great. Can imagine that you would like even more root name servers there in oder to be able to offer the best connectivity on earth to the Elks and forget about the rest of the world :-). IMHO: Your answer is insufficient if not entirely mistaken. The inhabitants of central and southern Europe have a right to the same kind of connectivity as the northern region is now trying to get hold of or already has done so. Make no sense to improve an already good situation.
--Peter
Marcel
Marcel Schneider:
IMHO: Your answer is insufficient if not entirely mistaken. The inhabitants of central and southern Europe have a right to the same kind of connectivity as the northern region is now trying to get hold of or already has done so. Make no sense to improve an already good situation.
What about having the Europeans to work towards moving the center of Europe from the US East coast to some European point ? As long as European major connectivity providers are ignoring each other and having their best interconnection points being MAE-East or the NY Nap all this seems useless to me... (that was an end user's point of view -- intra Europe networking is not usable today for people who work, at least those not in scandinavian areas). So for us, London, Stockholm, NY, Washington, Geneva, Milano, etc... that root server will mainly be unrechable :(. The location of that server is not a technical issue, it's a political one. -- Christophe Wolfhugel -+- SIS, Institut Pasteur, Paris Boulot : wolf@pasteur.fr, $HOME : wolf@schnok.fr.net
The location of that server is not a technical issue, it's a political one. True. And it will stay that way on this continent, where for ages and ages already national issues have dominated what politicians have the guts to call "European politics". There is no such thing: "European politics" is the sum of national politics and always the lowest common denominator. There's more than enough proof of that: "Bosnia" is one of the most striking proofs of the total failure of "European politics" (and since you're from France and I'm from Holland, I would add "drugs" to that... ;-)). In networking land it's no better. And there it's even worse, since the problem is made even worse by the price policies of the various national PTT's; deregulation, even though it has been the focus of the European Commission for many years, is largely still a dead letter. Just have a look at the prices that the various PTT's charge for international lines, and compare them with the prices for intercontinental lines. Then it isn't really surprising that in networking context the US has become the "center of Europe".... :-( Piet
Piet Beertema <Piet.Beertema@cwi.nl> writes: The location of that server is not a technical issue, it's a political one. True. And it will stay that way on this continent, ....
The RIPE DNS WG met and there was consensus that root servers should be connected through a dedicated address prefix and AS. Connectivity of the KTH based server will be re-engineered like this. The LINX based server will be set up like this. Further there was consensus that we should move *towards* a situation where the RIPE NCC is responsible for operating all root servers in the European region under the guidance RIPE and funded as an NCC core activity. It fits the principles for such activities extremely well (see below). It is important to note that while the NCC will have the operational responsibility this does not exclude interested parties to contribute to nameserver operation in any way. To the contrary the efforts of individuals and organisations like KTH, NORDUNET, LINX and VBCnet are very welcome and essential for reliable operation of the root nameservers. Given those two design decisions, root servers are not so closely bound to their location and can be moved around the network topology with relative ease as topology changes and other engineering parameters suggest. Although I am alightly biased in the RIPE NCC matter ;-) I think that this consensus both very sensible and quite solid. Daniel Principles for NCC Activities The RIPE NCC performs activities for the benefit of the Internet service provider s (ISPs) in Europe and the surrounding areas; primarily activities that the ISPs need to organise as a group, although they may be competing with each other in other areas. The RIPE NCC must therefore observe strict neutrality and impartiality with respect to individual service providers. In particular it refrains from activities that are clearly in the domain of the ISPs themselves. Activities are defined, performed, discussed and evaluated in an open manner. Results of activities such as software tools are made available to the public. Budgets as well as actual income and expenditure are published. Individual data will be kept in confidence where required. For example the amounts of address space allocated and assigned are published as are database entries of individual assignments including the relevant contact data; however the information supporting individual assignment requests is kept in strict confidence. While an activity may result in services being provided to an individual ISP, performing the activity as a whole must benefit the European ISPs as a group. For example address space registration services are provided to ISPs individually, but the activity as such benefits all ISPs by distributing address space according to common standards as well as maintaining a neutral and accessible registry.
Given those two design decisions, root servers are not so closely bound to their location and can be moved around the network topology with relative ease as topology changes and other engineering parameters suggest. Then how about a mobile root server, moving from country to country, say, every month? Politically perfect! :-) Piet
Piet Beertema <Piet.Beertema@cwi.nl> writes: Given those two design decisions, root servers are not so closely bound to their location and can be moved around the network topology with relative ease as topology changes and other engineering parameters suggest. Then how about a mobile root server, moving from country to country, say, every month? Politically perfect! :-)
But not very practical or pragmatic. And that after all are our maximes. Daniel
participants (4)
-
Christophe Wolfhugel -
Daniel Karrenberg -
Marcel Schneider -
Piet Beertema