IPv6 Confusion

Wed Feb 18 04:18:33 UTC 2009

On Feb 17, 2009, at 3:55 PM, Mark Andrews wrote:
> In otherwords ISP's need to enter the 21st century.

Yeah, those stupid, lazy, ISPs.  I'm sure they're just sitting around  
every day, kicking back, eating Bon Bons(tm), and thinking of all the  
new and interesting ways they can burn the vast tracts of ill-gotten  
profits they're obviously rolling in.

Reality check: change in large scale production networks is hard and  
expensive. There needs to be a business case to justify making  
substantive changes.  You are arguing that ISPs should make changes  
without any obvious mechanism to guarantee some return on the  
investment necessary to pay for those changes.  This is a waste of time.

In general, NAT is paid for by the end user, not the network  
provider.  Migrating to IPv6 on the other hand is paid for entirely by  
the network provider.  Guess which is easier to make a business case  
for?

Note that I'm not saying I like the current state of affairs, rather  
I'm suggesting that jumping up and down demanding ISPs change because  
you think they're stuck in the last century is unlikely to get you  
very far.  You want a concrete suggestion? Make configuring DDNS on  
BIND _vastly_ simpler, scalable to tens or hundreds of thousands of  
clients, and manageable by your average NOC staff.

Regards,
-drc