0
In the networking world, many equate simplicity with the fewest number of moving parts. According to this line of thinking, if there are 100 routers, 10 firewalls, 3 control planes, and 4 management systems in a network, then reducing the number of routers to 95, the number of firewalls to 8, the number of control planes to 1, and the number of management systems to 3 would make the system “much simpler.” Disregarding the reduction in the number of management systems, scientifically proven to always increase in number, it does seem that reducing the number of physical devices, protocols in use, etc., would tend to decrease the complexity of the network.
The wise engineers of the IETF, however, has a word of warning in this area that all network engineers should heed. According to RFC1925, rule 5: “It is always possible to agglutinate multiple separate problems into a single complex interdependent solution. In most cases this is a bad idea.” When “conventional wisdom” and the wisdom of engineers with the kind of experience and background as those who write IETF documents contradict one another, it is worth taking a deeper look.
A good place to begin is Continue reading