jose@MCL.UNISYS.COM (Jose Rodriguez) (10/24/88)
These few messages on GE's network address has triggered some thoughts I have been holding since the Annapolis IETF meeting, basicly: Is there a need for class A addresses? I can think of two possible uses of such an address: 1) A very large comm subnet - with 2^24 hosts. (Does such a network exist? Will future telephones be IP hosts?) 2) Subnetting, say used by an organization with 255 class B networks. (Would such an organization exist? Could the gateways front-ending the subnetted network be able to handle the load?) Your comments on the above will be appreciated. Jose M. Rodriguez Unisys McLean R&D
BILLW@MATHOM.CISCO.COM (William Westfield) (10/25/88)
In retrospect, the division points between class A, B, and C networks are in the wrong places (class C newtorks are too small, class A newtorks are too large). However, it made the numbers easy to read in dotted syntax, and was not too bad for a shot in the dark... The current directions of networking seem to imply that class A was always too big, but back then it might have been reasonable to expect that AT&T, for example, would want use class A addresses for each of its telephones... Bill Westfield cisco Systems. -------
barnett@vdsvax (Bruce G. Barnett) (10/27/88)
In article <8810241542.AA07439@KAUAI.MCL.UNISYS.COM>, jose@MCL (Jose Rodriguez) writes: >Is there a need for class A addresses? Well, If you expect to have the number of machines a company like GE expects, there is some advantage to getting a single block of numbers and assigning the network numbers from one organization. Having dozens of divisions of GE requesting their own class C and B networks seems much more inefficient. Especially when many sites have little experience with the internet.
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (10/28/88)
In article <5857@vdsvax.steinmetz.ge.com> barnett@vdsvax (Bruce G. Barnett) writes: >Well, If you expect to have the number of machines a company like GE >expects, there is some advantage to getting a single block of numbers >and assigning the network numbers from one organization. You don't need a class A network for this. You could get a whole bunch of class B or C networks, and then hand them out as departments set up new networks. At Thinking Machine we received about ten class C networks, and we use about half of them so far for our various internal networks. Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
reschly@BRL.MIL ("Robert J. Reschly Jr.") (11/02/88)
Barry,
There is a good reason for arguing against a cluster of class B (or C)
addresses over one A (or B). When one is in a situation where there is
one portal (or just a few portals) into a cluster of networks, and those
networks are richly interconnected, then subnetting is a win. For
networks outside the portal, only the underlying network needs to be
known to make routing decisions. With clusters of non-subnetted networks,
each network needs to be known outside the portal. Adding one address
to the routing mess is vastly preferrable to adding many.
Later,
Bob
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**** For a good time, call: (303) 499-7111. Seriously! ****ralphw@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) (11/05/88)
In article <8811012316.aa00563@SEM.BRL.MIL> reschly@BRL.MIL ("Robert J. Reschly Jr.") writes: > > Barry, > > There is a good reason for arguing against a cluster of class B (or C) >addresses over one A (or B). When one is in a situation where there is >one portal (or just a few portals) into a cluster of networks, and those >networks are richly interconnected, then subnetting is a win. For AMPRNET (Amateur Packet Radio Net, #44), some are questioning whether getting a class A address was the best thing at this early development stage. Having a class A address makes internetworking Harder in our case, since a network is assumed to be fully connected internally. AMPRNET is not, and probably will not be for the next few years. So my gripe isn't with the size of networks as much as the (presumed) model and the various implementations of it. I'd rather glue things together with smart AMPRnet<->Internet gateways (I believe that they should be the only machines with the burden of keeping detailed routing information for AMPRnet.) -- - Ralph W. Hyre, Jr. Internet: ralphw@ius3.cs.cmu.edu Phone:(412) CMU-BUGS Amateur Packet Radio: N3FGW@W2XO, or c/o W3VC, CMU Radio Club, Pittsburgh, PA "You can do what you want with my computer, but leave me alone!8-)"