(Reposted by request)

A little bit dynamic, is like a little bit pregnant.

An address is either static, and if it isn't, it's dynamic.

For applications like master DNS operation, where the raw IP address *must* be
used for delegations, and where the rate of change of the delegation is slow,
the IP address must be static.

Can you imagine what use your phone would be if your phone number was "mostly
static?" It too would be a nonsense.

Indeed, for any "always on" permanent server operation, it is not satisfactory
to have the IP address change, despite the availability of many free dynamic
DNS services. Even a dynamic DNS service can cause unavailabilities of 5 to
15 minutes...

I'm still puzzled as to why dynamic allocation is being used, it certainly is
not improving the utilisation of the IP addresses (which is the normal use in
a dial-up or intermittent environment), we have been told that ISP's must
over-provision IP addresses, so there is no efficiency gain there.

Chris's comments seem to indicate the dyanmic nature is *intentional* ("I'm
afraid this is only until networks have sussed out how to go truly dynamic
again without hiccups.") so I guess we are left to wonder why such effort is
being expended to achieve a functionality that offers no efficiency and is
blatantly opposed to the customers preference.

As to the *technical difficulty* of static IP, well, it seems to have been
possible in a much more uncertain environment, dial-up, for a long time and
the absence of such functionality in a permanent connection service is
bizarre.

Hamish.

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Received on Tue Jun 1 11:21:31 1999