26 May
2022
26 May
'22
12:59 p.m.
On 5/26/22 19:36, charlie--- via 44net wrote:
I like the regional pops idea and add the ability to have redundant connectivity for an
end user (individual or entity). So I connect to a west coast and a central or east coast
pop in the US. Europe and others can do something similar. If I wanted, maybe I can
connect to as many pops as I think I need to. Could also be admin limited to keep things
from getting too crazy. POPs are a full mesh between regions.
Yes, that is also part of my design. An entry-level user can connect to a single PoP and
get "their subnet" routed to them, and route all other Net44 space towards that
PoP. Simple, static routing.
A more advanced user can make multiple PoP connections and use BGP to send and receive
individual subnet routes, and let their local router decide to which of the PoPs to send
each packet. That would also cover the case where a PoP is down and all traffic is routed
via the remaining one(s).
These users can also have cross-connections to other users (via radio or direct tunnels)
and the routing remains correct.
End user setup is MUCH more simple at that point as well. No scripts to install hundreds
of tunnels into a MikroTik router.
Indeed, the setup of one or more tunnel connections and (if desired) BGP peers is very
simple in a MikroTik router.
Are there any programs or ham friendly datacenters
that could help with regional bandwidth and transport between hops? When I think
regional, I think of things like AWS, Azure and Google Cloud with their multi-region
setups. Maybe a bit overkill but something to consider I guess?
Several HAMs have stuff in datacenters and could be part of such a network, but a PoP
could be an inexpensive VPS in such a cloud network as well. Some platforms have
difficulty with protocols like IPIP, but it would be phased out anyway.
The PoPs would be interlinked using a (partial) mesh of tunnels, and when possible in that
VPS service they can also announce a local part of the Net44 space on internet using BGP,
so traffic between local users and internet takes a shorter path.
The advantage is that a PoP can announce a larger network ( /24 .. /16 for example) and
the local users take a smaller subnet out of that, reducing the number of BGP subnet
announcements on internet while keeping the efficiency of a local announcement.
Also many users now announce a /24 because that is the minimum size on internet, while
they require much less than that.
Centralizing the BGP announcements also makes the administrative effort much less, both
for users and network admins.
Of course to make this efficient it is best when IP allocations, also when they are to be
BGP announced, remain roughly tied to geographical region.
Unfortunately that is not what is currently happening.
Rob