RE: [wg-c] Initial Numbers

["Kevin J. Connolly" <CONNOLLK@rspab.com>]

"Roeland M.J. Meyer" <rmeyer@mhsc.com> 12/15/99 12:21AM  wrote
(responding to my response to Milton Mueller's post:

>> >Technically, adding a new TLD to the root means adding a few
>> >lines of text with the character string and pointers to two name
>> >servers. There are no technical issues whatsoever as long as the
>> >number stays below one million, which it certainly will do.
>>
>> I know that this proposition does not enjoy universal support.  It
>> overlooks the fact that the frequency of root queries is almost
>> certainly proportional to the number of zones in the root.
>
>False.

Well, Christian Huitema presented a paper at ISOC-NY last Spring
on this very subject.  The more TLDs there are, the greater the
likelihood that one will need to query the root in order to resolve 
a domain name.  This is (according to Dr. Huitema, who, I believe,
knows a few things more than the average bear about the DNS) as
fundamental as 1+1 = 2.  So, what's the flaw?
>
>>I would
>> love to see the experimental data which show that increasing the
>> number of zones by four orders of magnitude will not result in an
>> unacceptably-great increase in DNS latency.  In fact, DNS latency
>> is a subject I do not recall *anyone* on this list (other
>> than myself)
>> ever having raised, notwithstanding many people bandy about the
>> absence of technical barriers to increasing the number of zones
>> in the root.
>
>Latency == irrelevant.

I would love to see a substantive response 
rather than a simple dismissal.  I am reminded 
of a Dilbert panel in which Dogbert demonstrates 
that computers are worthless.  Why?  Because 
more than 100% of the time saved through 
the increased productivity facilitated by computers 
has been spent waiting for web pages to load.  
Dr. Huitema's paper, which was based on 
empirical research, reported that between 13% 
and 16% of total web latency was due to DNS 
latency, and that there is no reliable, empirical 
evidence on the elasticity of DNS latency in 
respect of enlarging the root.

Latency is anything but irrelevant to users.  
Long-distance providers compete
on speed of connection.  Internet users equate 
watching the progress panel on
a web browser to ringy-ringy-ringy.  
It diminishes customer satisfaction.  But of
course, customer satisfaction is irrelevant 
to the prospect of squeezing every
last dime of profit possible out of the DNS 
and damn the consequences. :-)
>
>Before I go on to these Kevin ... If it were any one else, or someone that I
>didn't know, I'd give you the benefit of the doubt. However, because I know
>that you know better (therefore, this is NOT an innocent mistake) I'll call
>you out as deliberately spreading FUD. I'll also state that you've been
>called out as a FUD-meister before... with cause.

(1)  You must have me confused with someone else.
(2)  I'm a clueless real estate lawyer from 
New York who's still learning how to interface 
serial devices to his PC.
(3)  Nobody else has ever called me a sayer 
of FUD to my face or my keyboard before.
(4)  Fud-ga wakaraimassen.  Fud-ga nan desu-ka?
(5)  Do the words "ad hominem" seem germane 
in this context?  I.e., if you haven't a substantive response, start slinging rhetoric and see if anyone else is prepared 
ro use namecalling and rhetoric as a 
substitute for thinking.

>
>A new TLD will generate no more new zones than an SLD, a 3LD, or a 4LD. If
>your argument were true then we had better hurry up and start restricting
>new zones at any level and the DNS is seriously broken. Your logic is beyond
>"impaired".

The increased load on the root is unpredictable 
in any event; but there is at least
some a priori basis to believe that a 
successful TLD (one that generates oodles of
busy SLDs) will increase the load on the 
root.  Mr. Meyer's response appears to
ignore the distributed nature of the DNS and 
to suggest that a new zone imposes
the same load on the root, whether the new 
zone is a TLD, an SLD, or an arbitarily-
distant domain.  I seem to recall having read 
several RFCs that indicate that the DNS was 
set up as a distributed resource precisely to 
avoid that kind of scaling problem.
>
>For both parts, many of us know that every 
time a sub-net is delegated, a
>new zone is created. 

Golly.  I never suspected this :-)  I thought 
that sub-nets were an aspect
of the IP address system.  I also thought 
that IP and DNS are orthogonal.
Is there maybe an equivocation here between 
"sub-net" and "subordinate domain?"  And 
if's that's what's going on, please enlighten 
me how my creating a domain such as 
"ciaran.cybersharque.com" increases the load
on the root?  I would have thought that when 
I delegate a third-level domain, the including 
SLD is responsible for providing nameservice to the 3LD.

>There are no practical limits on the number of zones
>that the DNS can support. 

Wow.  Fascinating proposal.  Then there's no 
reason why we can't level every
man, woman, child and fungal mycelium on the 
planet have their own TLD?
The mind boggles. Or does it make a difference 
if the tree is totally flat or structured in such a 
way that the load on the root is parsed and 
spread-out?

>MHSC.COM contains six zone files, MHSC.NET has
>MANY more. There is a one:many relationship, of domains to zone files. Also,
>every hostmaster is in charge of one or more zones.
>
>The only things that effect latency are the throughput of the root server
>and the type of network it is connected to.
>
<I restrain myself, lest I lapse into lame-flaming :->
This seems to suggest that latency is not 
related to the number of queries to the root 
server.  This reminds me of a lecture I once 
suffered through in advanced calculus on the 
subject of indeterminate forms.  It strikes me as 
completely incomprehensible.  If a root server 
is capable of responding to, say, 1000 
queries/sec and it receives 5000 queries during 
a one-second period, then either 80% of the 
queries don't get responded to (in which case 
the querying  process has to recognize that it's 
not going to get an answer and then re-submit 
the query) or those 4/5 queries will be enqueued.  
In either case, the actual latency of the system 
is proportional to the load on the server once 
the rated throughput of the server is exceeded.  
Thus I reiterate that latency is a function of 
load as well as throughput and network capacity.
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