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From: tron@nsc.NSC.COM (Ronald S. Karr)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: I hate smail
Message-ID: <4070@nsc.NSC.COM>
Date: Wed, 7-Jan-87 15:12:29 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.4070
Posted: Wed Jan  7 15:12:29 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Jan-87 23:37:30 EST
References: <14227@amdcad.UUCP> <32@auspyr.UUCP>
Reply-To: tron@nsc.UUCP (Ronald S. Karr)
Organization: Rational Swamiconductor, Sanivale
Lines: 38

In article <32@auspyr.UUCP> joe@auspyr.UUCP (Joe Angelo) writes:
>it doesn't even come near considering geographic area ... Eg: location!!
>This, ofcourse, could be mostly the fault of pathaliases ... but I won't
>point any fingers (                            ^^    )
>...
>Even though I specify a direct path (quick and fast), all it takes is
>one smail site to reroute the message BACK across the country ... and two
>weeks later my 99K mail gets to me.

The greatest problem here is not that pathalias doesn't take into
account geographic areas, or that geographic domains do not exist.  The
problem is a lack of standardization on what costs should be used for
map entries, and is also a function of the number of system
administrators who just put DEMAND and DIRECT costs on lines that
probably shouldn't be used for high amounts of traffic.

I believe that a somewhat standard system of cost figuring that took
into account poll rate, line cost, line capacity, system reliability
and size, and (possibly) distance, would, if adopted by enough system
administrators, yield a much more reliable path database.

For example, a small widget box in the midwest which happens to poll on
demand to a system on the west coast and a system on the east coast
should take into account that it doesn't have leased lines or the
necessary system size and performance to handle all traffic between
coasts and state costs other than DEMAND, and probably much higher.

Another parallel possibility here is to give a cost to a host that
indicates a _through_ cost, which would raise the cost for routing
_through_ a site as opposed to routing _to_ a site.  Pathalias would need
to be modified for this to work, but perhaps the best way to reach this
midwestern machine from either cost is through those demand lines, while
sites wouldn't generally want to route through this site.  In this
case, a low cost could be given for the lines, while a high cost is
given for routing through the site.
-- 
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  tron@sc.nsc.com   UUCPnet: {amdahl,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,sun}!nsc!tron