The MPLS WG Archive

[Curtis Villamizar <curtis@fictitious.org>]

In message <4B6D09F3B826D411A67300D0B706EFDE0115C831@nt-exch-yow.pmc-sierra.bc.
ca>, Shahram Davari writes:
>  
> >>1) ECMP could use only label hashing and not hash IP header.
> >
> >         This is unrealistic. Lots of vendors hash on both,
> >one or the other.  Lets not go down the road of trying
> >to mandate how ECMP works again. We went down that
> >road in MPLS and the response was clear.
>  
> Hashing on IP header is not part of any IETF standard, and I am not
> sure all fu ture IETF standards should be based on supporting
> non-standard proprietary implementation s. if one likes to still hash
> IP header, then he could define a proper protocol mux header and use
> it all the time.


You keep repeating this "non-standard proprietary" diatribe despite
being corrected.

src/dst based hash has been used for almost 15 years now.  In 1988 you
might have been more justified in calling it "non-standard
proprietary" but not in 2003.

It is documented in RFC 2991.

  2991 Multipath Issues in Unicast and Multicast Next-Hop Selection. D.
       Thaler, C. Hopps. November 2000. (Format: TXT=17796 bytes) (Status:
       INFORMATIONAL)

This makes it far from proprietary and the fact that the document as
informational does not make it non-standard.  It is not mandated by
any specific protocol but it is widely implemented and deployed.

src/dst hash based load split is widely deployed in numerous protocol
and considered important by many ISPs.

So please stop making the "non-standard proprietary" accusation unless
you want to be known as someone who persistantly ignores the facts.

Curtis