I'm trying to put together a BOF to be held during the NAOG 39 meeting
(Feb 4-7), that looks at when current router/switch architectures run
out of TCAM or SRAM on the line-cards (depending on flavor) to hold the
fib, and potentially what's being done about it. Part of the whole
global routing scalability problem that's been fodder for a couple NANOG
meeting now hinges on having the data you need in the fib. Comparatively
buying more ram for or scaling your rp is a problem, but not immediately
an intractable one by comparison.
I'm aiming to do this as a BOF rather than as part of the main program
in the hope that vendors will be more free to talk specifically about
their own products in a way that is not always appreciated in the main
meeting, Feedback has been positive on this approach from the Program
Committee... I would expect that this topic would have a significant
audience with the NANOG crowd. If I've reached the wrong person in your
organization can you please help me find someone who might be interested
because I think this topic has serious implications for operators and
will probably shape purchasing decisions among other things over the
coming year.
Currently I've solicited a couple router/switch vendors and a few (two) have already gotten back to me. I
intend to also solicit presentations from the operator community, because I know for a fact that people
are doing interesting things when confronted with this problem. A large regional ISP that I know in a
non-principally-english speaking country is continuing to buy routers with 200k fib entries for example
and counting on aggressive filtering and a potentially dramatically incomplete view of the internet to be sufficient.
Link to the introduction
Link to Jaeggli
Link to Hankins
Link to de Silva
Link to Ryan
Link to Scudder
Link to Atkinson
Link to the Report on NANOG 39 FIB BOF