[Nsi-wg] Question about NSA identifier

[Henrik Thostrup Jensen]

Hi

John MacAuley <john.macauley at surfnet.nl> , 3/6/2013 10:35 PM:
Peoples,
I was running through the bootstrap procedure with Chin when the question of multiple NSA identifiers per software instance came up.  Can someone please explain to me again why we need a one-to-one mapping between NSA (NSA identifier) and Network (Network Identifier)?  It seems to be a very arbitrary restriction.
I believe the 1:1 mapping was decided on before I joined the NSI group.

I don't see any problems allowing an NSA to administrate multiple networks. In fact, this reminds somewhat of BGP where a network functions as transit to other networks and announces multiple AS numbers.

I have looked through the existing WSDL definitions and there are no restrictions within it for this imposed rule.  In addition, the topology schema could easily have multiple "managing" elements within the NSA object to allow it to reference multiple Network Identifiers, thereby creating a one-to-many relationship.
I think it is the other way in NML. The topology (network) is the top level object, and it species which NSA manages it.

However two networks could easily list the same NSA, so no worries.


We have a very real network requirement to support multiple network services off of a single NSA software instance.  For example, off of one NSA (urn:ogf:network:surfnet.nl:2012:nsa) we can support the ETS service (urn:ogf:network:surfnet.nl:2012:ets) and an EPL service (urn:ogf:network:surfnet.nl:2012:epl).  At the moment, given the current restriction, I would have to have two separate NSA.
Is there a reason to keep these as a seperate topology? It seems like the same network to me?

However I still think it makes sense to have an NSA able to administrate multiple networks. E.g., the NORDUnet NSA could adminstrate SUNET (which we operate as well), or a Dutch university could announce the SURFnet NSA as their NSA. This is similar to how some universities have their own AS number, but all their NREN provides the connectivity and announces their AS number (okay it is somewhat opposite agent/network relationship, but I still think the argument is sane).

Does anyone have a reason why we can't remove this restriction?
Nope.


  best regards, Henrik
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