[ih] "The First Router" on Jeopardy

[Guy Almes]

Alex,
   Not a problem.

   Your post actually made me curious about how the CIX router was 
configured.  Who decided which network to point to for a prefix 
connected to two or more CIX members?

   And, of course, it didn't take long for exchange points to shift to 
level-2 networks such as the FIX (federal) exchanges at Univ Maryland 
and at (I think) NASA Ames.
   And the cleverly named MAE-East came soon thereafter.

	-- Guy

On 11/25/21 12:24 PM, Alex McKenzie wrote:
> Guy,
> 
> I agree that my guess about the influence of the CIX is the wrong time 
> frame.  I should have done a bit of research before speaking.  Thanks 
> for the correction.
> 
> Cheers,
> Alex
> 
> On Wednesday, November 24, 2021, 08:47:43 PM EST, Guy Almes 
> <galmes at tamu.edu> wrote:
> 
> 
> Alex,
>    It is true that the CIX episode marked a trend in this direction, but
> there are two reasons why your specific suggestion is not right.
> 
>    First, by 1987, when both the ARPAnet and the proto-NSFnet backbone
> were both operational, networks that connected to both had to decide
> which to use, and that led to interesting routing decisions.  Problems
> encountered then led, for example, to creation of BGP.
>    Similarly, again during the 1980s, a network might also connect to
> the NASA Science Internet and, again, have to make interesting routing
> choices.
> 
>    Second, recall that the initial CIX "exchange" was a single router
> with a T1 circuit from each of PSInet, Alternet, and CERFnet.  I don't
> know exactly how that router was configured, but note that it was that
> CIX router that had to make many of the interesting routing decisions.
> 
>    Also, I think that the term 'router' as a Level-3 gateway was in
> heavy use prior to 1991.
>      -- Guy
> 
> On 11/24/21 10:29 AM, Alex McKenzie via Internet-history wrote:
>  > I've stayed out of the discussion but listened with interest.  In 
> fact, I have no clear recollection of when the terminology switched.  
> But I suspect it happened around the time the first CIX (Commercial 
> Internet Exchange) agreement was reached.  Before that there was a 
> "backbone" network (first ARPAnet and then NSFnet).  Packets went from 
> your network to the backbone, across the backbone, and then to the 
> destination network.  But after the CIX agreement there became a 
> meaningful choice of routes, and the gateways had to start figuring out 
> what the set of available routes was and choose one.  I understand this 
> is an oversimplification of the internet structure, but I think it is a 
> meaningful one.
>  > Cheers,Alex
> 
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