[c-nsp] IS-IS Multiarea on 12.2 SR

[Mark Tinka]

On Monday 09 November 2009 03:23:46 pm Richard A Steenbergen 
wrote:

> I'm not questioning your decision, I'm just stating it
> for the archives and for everyone else who has to make
> this same decision at some point in the future: If you
> have to ask, just don't do it. I see way too many people
> trying to deploy areas with 10 router networks because
> they read somewhere that it was what they were supposed
> to do to scale, or because people saw it on an exam
> somewhere.

This makes sense, and I appreciate where you're coming from.

<instructor hat>

However, wearing my "instructor" hat when we give workshops 
in various places around the world, we tend to teach folk 
how to build large scale networks, based on our own 
experiences doing the same.

In some cases, we say build scaling into your operations 
even when it may seem "unnecessary", because the general 
assumption is that your network is going to grow. Sure, it 
could take 5, 10, 15 years, depending on whom you ask, but 
if there's a chance it does grow, you don't want to re-work 
your entire design to add scaling into the mix; especially 
since adding scalability in from the start doesn't add any 
incremental cost in terms of $$ or complexity.

And I'm not just talking about OSPF or IS-IS specifically 
(since router CPU's are much faster these days, assuming 
operators can afford such platforms), but networking in 
general, especially for some features or protocols where 
thinking about scalability from day one isn't such a bad 
idea, even if it might make little sense today.

I'm sure many of us, in our careers as network operators, 
have wished that we had done something differently in the 
past not to suffer the pain of today - even if it seemed 
infeasible, at the time, that we'd get to where we are 
today.

</instructor hat>

Cheers,

Mark.
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