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From: avolio@decuac.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Neighbor optimized away
Message-ID: <912@decuac.DEC.COM>
Date: Sat, 3-May-86 20:37:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: decuac.912
Posted: Sat May  3 20:37:45 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 6-May-86 04:06:55 EDT
References: <4509@dartvax.UUCP> <2124@peora.UUCP>
Organization: ULTRIX Applications Center, MD
Lines: 25
Keywords: uucp pathalias

In article <2124@peora.UUCP>, jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) writes:
> > It turns out that the pathalias "cost" of our link to Z is greater than
> > that of path A!B!C!Z, so the optimizer always chooses A!B!C!Z.  ...
> ... Its optimization is based on the costs, not the number of sites.
> ...   Because pathalias is trying to get the mail there
> while minimizing the "cost"

And keep in mind that Real Networks do this automatically and
dynamically. So, if a machine in a path from one machine to another
goes down and alternate path is sought. In Real Networks, this is done
without the user's knowledge (except that one might notice the speed
being slower today than yesterday or some such thing).  We worry about
it (whether we should or not) because 1) we notice it -- have to give
uucico a host to call and 2) because sometimes we use the wrong COST
in our pathalias data.  And so someone has to fix this by hand.
Unforturnately these things may have to be fixed daily as systems go
down for scheduled maintenance, etc.  Things that are done
automatically in Real Networks.

On the other hand you can't beat the ease of setting up a UUCP
connection!

-- 
Fred @ DEC Ultrix Applications Center
INET: avolio@decuac.DEC.COM          UUCP: {decvax,seismo,cbosgd}!decuac!avolio