Subject: RE: [midcom] SNMP - using as a transport layer?

From: "Zmolek, Andrew (Andrew)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 11:44:57 -0600

Keith Moore asserts:

> The only way to solve the problem in general is to get rid of NATs.
> It's important to not lose sight of this.

It's a stretch to suggest that simple expulsion is the only way to skin the NAT cat. But it should be acknowledged that it remains politically incorrect in the IETF to suggest solutions that condone any long-term model for address domain traversal, whether between v4 address realms directly or with one or more v6 realms. 

While it would appear that the market has already made a decision on the issue or address domain traversal in general, the IETF community at large does not concede that point. In fact, there is a great deal of activism aimed at reversing the market decision on the grounds of technical purity. As unrealistic as this might be, this is the political environment in which we must work.

But midcom is just one recent example of how this political appeasement affects the technical engineering which was once the hallmark of the IETF. Groups like geopriv and opes and ieprep are also burdened with the misfortune of having chosen a technical problem encumbered by well-meaning political activism around issues like privacy and the fabled "end-to-end" principle, both of which trump existing, demonstrated market needs partially satisfied by proprietary or external solutions. 

So let's not loose sight of the fact that political activism, not fundamental engineering, is the primary constraint in play. Those who miss this point have already wasted many man-hours on workable solutions that happen to be politically unacceptable here. Not that there's anything wrong with that :-)

--Andy Zmolek 
    Technology & Standards Engineer 
      CTO Standards 
        Avaya Inc. 

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              +1 720 444 4001 
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From: Scott Brim <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 13:58:13 -0400

On Fri, Jun 21, 2002 11:44:57AM -0600, Zmolek, Andrew (Andrew) wrote:
> While it would appear that the market has already made a decision on
> the issue or address domain traversal in general, the IETF community
> at large does not concede that point. In fact, there is a great deal
> of activism aimed at reversing the market decision on the grounds of
> technical purity. As unrealistic as this might be, this is the
> political environment in which we must work.

Just picking this out ... There are some reactionaries who want to
reverse the market decision on technical purity.  There is another group
which is working on new architectural fundamentals in order to create
architectural purity.  Neither of them like NATs, but don't lump them
together.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 2002 14:36:58 -0400

> It's a stretch to suggest that simple expulsion is the only way to skin
> the NAT cat. 

agreed.  and the terse expression "get rid of NATs" doesn't reflect
the inherent difficulty in finding and deploying better solutions
for the problems that NATs attempt to address.  

at the same time, it should be obvious by now that NATs introduce 
far more problems than they solve, and that various attempts to fix 
NATs and get apps to cope with multiple addressing realms are not 
producing either a saner or more cost-effective world.

> But it should be acknowledged that it remains politically
> incorrect in the IETF to suggest solutions that condone any long-term
> model for address domain traversal, whether between v4 address realms
> directly or with one or more v6 realms.

your dismissal of the real technical problems as political ones
does not lend credibility to your argument.  actually, IETF has 
entertained numerous attempts to suggest such solutions, but nobody
has demonstrated that any solution involving multiple distinct
address domains is viable in the long term, at least not without
drastically restricting the kinds of applications that can be run
in the Internet.  

> While it would appear that the market has already made a decision on the
> issue or address domain traversal in general, the IETF community at
> large does not concede that point. 

markets do change, and are somewhat fickle.  numerous customers have been
mislead by marketing propaganda promoting NATs, but there is a growing
awareness not just in IETF but elsewehere (including in the "market") 
that NATs cause serious problems.

> In fact, there is a great deal of
> activism aimed at reversing the market decision on the grounds of
> technical purity. As unrealistic as this might be, this is the political
> environment in which we must work.

you misunderstand the motivation.  "technical purity" is not the 
motiviation, "allowing applications to run reliably" is. 

> But midcom is just one recent example of how this political appeasement
> affects the technical engineering which was once the hallmark of the
> IETF. 

you're the one saying that "the market has made a decision" which is 
certainly not a technical argument.   similarly your attempt to gloss 
over the numerous technical problems by citing them as mere political
appeasement is baseless and disingenous.  if you have a technically
viable solution to the NAT problem, (one that doesn't just shift the 
burden to apps without providing them a way to solve that problem), 
I'd love to see it. 

> So let's not loose sight of the fact that political activism, not
> fundamental engineering, is the primary constraint in play. 

actually the primary constraint seems to be delusion.

Keith