Subject: Re: draft-ietf-nat-protocol-complications-02.txt

From: Sean Doran <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2000 00:56:52 +0200 (CEST)

Ohta-san:

| > No, not "or whatever" but "AND whatever".
|
| Do you mean "plug THEM in to your phone line and whatever"?

Yes, that is certainly one possibility.   I imagine the "inside"
interface would be some easy-to-wire LAN interface, enabling THEM
to communicate using whatever protocol/address seems appropriate inside.

I wonder how to decide the trade-off between the additional hardware
complexity of a multi-outside-port box and the additional software
involved in sharing state across several single-outside-port boxes.

	Sean.

---

From: Daniel Senie <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 19:58:19 -0400

> involved in sharing state across several single-outside-port boxes.

Given the propensity of different hardware interfaces to spring up for
each new service, I'd argue having multiple boxes interacting, while
more complex, is more realistic.

Example: today I can get a DSL modem or router, and I can get a cable
modem. But the technologies of those interfaces seems to keep changing.
To build one device with multiple interfaces would require (due to the
changing technologies) a place to plug in interface modules. This raises
the cost of manufacture dramatically over building a box with a fixed
set of ports, so it's unrealistic to expect the market will favor it.

Sure, it's a harder problem. A good challenge for engineers to solve.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel Senie                                        [email-masked]
Amaranth Networks Inc.                    http://www.amaranth.com