[e2e] Internet Draft and survey on P2P in the presence of NAT

[Spencer Dawkins]

I agree with Henning's take on legacy systems, but would be
disappointed if we can't do better than civil engineering - if
nothing else, the recurring costs of replacement are lower for
router software loads than for interstate highways.

I didn't say "zero", and I didn't say there weren't
non-recurring costs...

Spencer

--- Henning Schulzrinne <hgs at cs.columbia.edu> wrote:
> Unfortunately, many users aren't given a choice in the matter,
> at least 
> at reasonable cost. I would certainly prefer to not have to
> deal with this.
> 
> In general, I think the NAT issue illustrates a problem that
> will only 
> get larger: an ever larger fraction of time, financial
> resources and 
> research will be spent on maintaining legacy systems.
> Apparently, this 
> fraction has already reached well above 80% in many IT
> organizations. In 
> our case, the two primary legacy costs seem to be
> - insecure protocols, protocol implementations and operating
> systems
> - insufficient address space
> 
> Networking will become like civil engineering, where the vast
> majority 
> of time and money is spent on maintaining and patching up a
> crumbling 
> and decrepit infrastructure, rather than designing new roads,
> public 
> transportation, bridges or structures.
> 
> Henning