[e2e] traffic engineering considered harmful

[Bob Braden]

  *> 
  *>    I'll steal this topic as a chance for some blatant self-promotion:
  *> 
  *>    Resilient Overlay Networks:    http://nms.lcs.mit.edu/ron/
  *> 
  *>    Take a small collection of hosts around the 'Net.  They
  *> can see different paths in and out of various ASs.  Have them
  *> measure the paths between each other, and if they can establish
  *> a better route by sending their packets indirectly through another
  *> member of the overlay, do so.
  *> 
  *>    It's a rough approximation of the ideal that you're alluding to
  *> in your message, since it has the obvious downsides of needing to
  *> go all the way to the edge and then back in, and it's limited in its
  *> view of the available paths, but it's one way to start doing some
  *> of the things you're looking at.  Works pretty well, too, especially
  *> in the face of a few egregiously bad links.
  *> 
  *>    -Dave
  *> 
  
Why isn't this the Tragedy of the Commons waiting to happen?

Bob Braden