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Multihoming

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299: 230:(PI) is available in IPv6. This technique has the advantage of working like IPv4, supporting traffic balancing across multiple providers, and maintaining existing TCP and UDP sessions through cut-overs. Critics say that the increased size of routing tables needed to handle multi-homing in this way will overwhelm current router hardware. Proponents say that new hardware will be able to handle the increase due to cheaper memory, which drops in price according to 242:
However, from a pragmatic perspective, allocating a /32 is equivalent in global address space cost to allocating a single IPv4 address, and this may be acceptable if, as seems to be likely for the foreseeable future, the number of multihomed sites can be numbered only in the millions, as opposed to the many billions of non-multihomed endpoints which are anticipated to comprise the vast majority of IPv6 endpoints. Some
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A typical host or end-user network is connected to just one network. Connecting to multiple networks can increase reliability because if one connection fails, packets can still be routed through the remaining connection. Connecting to multiple networks can also improve performance because data can be
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Because many ISPs filter out route announcements with small prefixes, this will generally require a large "ISP-sized" IP allocation, such as a /32, to ensure global reachability. Using such large prefixes is an inefficient use of IPv6's address space; there are only about 4 billion /32 prefixes.
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must be positioned such that no single piece of network hardware controls all network access to a given host. In particular, it is not uncommon to see multiple Internet uplinks all converge on a single edge router. In such a configuration, the loss of that single router disconnects the Internet
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While multihoming with multiple addresses has been implemented for IPv4, it is not generally used, as host implementations do not deal well with multiple addresses per interface which requires the use of "virtual interfaces". It is also possible to implement multihoming for IPv4 using multiple
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Automated renumbering. If one uplink goes down, all addresses in the network will be renumbered into a new /48 subnet. DNS and firewall records must be updated to redirect traffic to a different /48 subnet. This renumbering will break live TCP and UDP
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providers. Furthermore, to lessen the possibility of simultaneous damage to all upstream links, the physical location of each of these upstream links should be physically diverse: far enough apart that a piece of machinery (such as a
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to that server be functional. For example, if the failure of a single element blocks users from properly resolving the DNS name of that server, then the server is effectively inaccessible, despite its otherwise connected
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Multihoming with multiple addresses is cheaper than classic multihoming, and can be used without any cooperation from the providers (e.g. in a home network) but requires additional technology in order to perform routing:
180:, each connected to a separate router or switch. Alternatively, and preferably, the function of a given host could be duplicated across multiple computers, each of which is connected to a different router or switch. 88:, which announces the network's address range to all providers. If one of the links fails, the dynamic routing protocol recognizes the failure within seconds or minutes and reconfigures its 107:
In this approach, the network is connected to multiple providers, and assigned multiple address ranges, one for each provider. Hosts are assigned multiple addresses, one for each provider.
246:(RIR) such as RIPE have started to allocate /48 from a specific prefix for this purpose. RIPE allocates IPv6 provider-independent address spaces /48 or shorter from 2001:0678::/29. 254:
Multihoming with multiple addresses has been implemented for IPv6. For outgoing traffic, this requires support on the host, either protocol agnostic (
186:: Not only must a host be accessible, but in many cases it must also be "referenced" to be useful. For most servers, this means in particular that the 560: 203:
Classic multihoming is the dominant technique for IPv4. This requires that a network have its own public IP address range and a public AS number.
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By increasing the number of interfaces and links being used and making routing less deterministic, multihoming complicates network administration.
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must be used to route packets through the correct provider, and reasonable source address selection policies must be implemented by hosts.
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philosophy supports the idea that it is better to deploy an imperfect solution now than a perfect solution after it is too late.
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In classic multihoming, a network is connected to multiple providers and uses its own range of addresses (typically from a
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Proceedings of the 2003 conference on Applications, technologies, architectures, and protocols for computer communications
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Problem Statement for Default Address Selection in Multi-Prefix Environments: Operational Issues of RFC 3484 Default Rules
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Akella, A.; Maggs, B.; Seshan, S.; Shaikh, A. & Sitaraman, R. (2003). "A measurement-based analysis of multihoming".
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A single host may be connected to multiple networks. For example, a mobile phone might be simultaneously connected to a
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Classic multihoming is costly, since it requires the use of address space that is accepted by all providers, a public
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and, depending on the destination, it may be more efficient to route through one network or the other.
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to more than one network. This can be done in order to increase reliability or performance.
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Both classic multihoming and multihoming with multiple addresses may be used in IPv6.
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When multihoming is used to improve reliability, care must be taken to eliminate any
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transmitted and received through the multiple connections simultaneously multiplying
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network, and a desktop computer might be connected to both a home network and a
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Sample Configuration for BGP with Two Different Service Providers (Multihoming)
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Practice of connecting a host or a computer network to more than one network
673: 234:. Proponents also say this is the only viable solution right now, and the 146:: A given network operations center must have multiple upstream links to 700:
De Launois, C.; Bagnulo, M. (2006). "The paths toward IPv6 multihoming".
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Matthieu Boutier; Juliusz Chroboczek (2015), "Source-specific routing",
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for incoming traffic, hosts must be associated with multiple A or AAAA
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Atkinson, Randall; Carpenter, Brian E.; Flinck, Hannu (May 2010).
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uplink, despite the fact that multiple ISPs are otherwise in use.
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Winter, Rolf; Faath, Michael; Ripke, Aneas (21 March 2016).
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Scalable Support for Multi-homed Multi-provider Connectivity
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There are several different ways to perform multihoming.
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to use the remaining links, transparently to the hosts.
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(2011). 504: 502: 500: 119:so that they are reachable through all providers; 755: 605: 540: 380: 606:Lamparter, David; Smirnov, Anton (2 May 2016). 497: 702:IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 122:for outgoing traffic, a technique such as 672: 636: 518: 481: 448: 222: 360:Site Multihoming by IPv6 Intermediation 756: 336:Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol 284:Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol 71: 325:Identifier/Locator Network Protocol 250:Multihoming with multiple addresses 103:Multihoming with multiple addresses 51: 13: 656: 273: 266:, etc.) or specific to IPv6 (e.g. 228:Provider Independent Address Space 14: 785: 297: 24:is the practice of connecting a 618: 599: 585: 553: 534: 464: 431: 410: 395: 374: 1: 384:A look at multihoming and BGP 367: 747:10.1016/j.telpol.2011.04.002 628:Renumbering Still Needs Work 608:"Destination/Source Routing" 244:regional Internet registries 7: 290: 43: 10: 790: 511:Proc. IFIP Networking 2015 342:Media-independent handover 130: 735:Telecommunications Policy 714:10.1109/COMST.2006.315853 214: 198: 137:single point of failure 124:source-specific routing 381:Iljitsch van Beijnum, 319:Host Identity Protocol 769:Internet architecture 674:10.1145/863955.863995 144:Upstream connectivity 667:. pp. 353–364. 184:Referencing entities 84:protocol, typically 78:Provider Independent 529:2014arXiv1403.0445B 223:Classic multihoming 72:Classic multihoming 178:network interfaces 595:. 6 January 2011. 420:. 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Index

host
computer network
throughput
WiFi
3G
VPN
Provider Independent
dynamic routing
BGP
routing tables
Autonomous System
DNS records
source-specific routing
single point of failure
backhoe
Routers
switches
network interfaces
name resolution
NAT
Provider Independent Address Space
Moore's law
worse is better
regional Internet registries
Multipath TCP
SCTP
QUIC
SHIM6
Locator/Identifier Separation Protocol
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