RFC 1126 (rfc1126) - Page 2 of 25
Goals and functional requirements for inter-autonomous system routing
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
RFC 1126 Inter-Autonomous System Routing October 1989 tradeoff considerations and the like have been purposefully omitted in support of this. An appendix has been included which addresses this omission to a limited extent and the reader is directed there for a more detailed discussion of the issues involved. The goals and functional requirements contained in this document are the result of work done by the members of the Open Routing Working Group. It is our intention that these goals and requirements reflect not only those foreseen in the Internet community but are also similar to those encountered in environments proposed by ANSI, ECMA and ISO. It is expected that there will be some interaction and relationship between this work and the product of these groups. 2. Overall Goals In order to derive a set functional requirements there must be one or more principals or overall goals for the routing environment to satisfy. These high level goals provide the basis for each of the functional requirements we have derived and will guide the design philosophy for achieving an inter-autonomous system routing solution. The overall goals we are utilizing are described in the following sections. 2.1 Route to Destination The routing architecture will provide for the routing of datagrams from a single source to one or more destinations in a timely manner. The larger goal is to provide datagram delivery to an identifiable destination, one which is not necessarily immediately reachable by the source. In particular, routing is to address the needs of a single source requiring datagram delivery to one or more destinations. The concepts of multi-homed hosts and multicasting routing services are encompassed by this goal. Datagram delivery is to be provided to all interconnected systems when not otherwise constrained by autonomous considerations. 2.2 Routing is Assured Routing services are to be provided with assurance, where the inability to provide a service is communicated under best effort to the requester within an acceptable level of error. This assurance is not to be misconstrued to mean guaranteed datagram delivery nor does it imply error notification for every lost datagram. Instead, attempts to utilize network routing services when such service cannot be provided will result in requester notification within a reasonable period given persistent attempts. Little
