IPv6 - a noobs prespective

Wed Feb 9 19:17:50 UTC 2011

Don't think as IPv6 the same as IPv4. You do not need to have all your IPv4 gear to support IPv6.

IPv6 is a separate network that runs on the same Ethernet wires as IPv4.

You will see that a few of your machine, in fact do not support IPv6 and will not till the end of the year (think load balancers from a famous vendor), http://www.theipv6experts.net/2011/ipv6-ipv4/

Just build a separate IPv6 network, with firewall, routing gear, etc... that reaches the same machines on your network. The deployment of IPv6 at Google, was I think to put some separate IPv6 only customer facing machines. As the load on IPv6 is still small, then you can start by a small set (best is if you can have same machines do IPv4 and IPv6, but you are not obliged to think it, it is the same network).

Why I don't recommend your servers to go IPv6 first, well get IPv6 to your engineers, the people that develop your applications and configure the servers, get them to be familiar with it, give them a sandbox, and then when everyone stop to run like headless chicken, plan your transition.

----- Original Message -----
From: "William Herrin" <bill at herrin.us>
To: "Franck Martin" <franck at genius.com>
Cc: nanog at nanog.org, "Robert Lusby" <nanogwp at gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, 10 February, 2011 7:37:31 AM
Subject: Re: IPv6 - a noobs prespective

On Wed, Feb 9, 2011 at 1:19 PM, Franck Martin <franck at genius.com> wrote:
> From: "William Herrin" <bill at herrin.us>
>> The thing that terrifies me about deploying IPv6 is that apps
>> compatible with both are programmed to attempt IPv6 before IPv4.
>> [...] is going to break again. And again. And again.
>
> This is dual stack, my recommendation is disable
> IPv6 on your servers (so your clients will still talk to
> them on IPv4 only), and let your client goes IPv6 first.
> Once you understand what is happening, get on IPv6
> on your servers.

That advice reminds me of a limerick I once heard:

A host is a host
>From coast to coast
And nobody talks to a host that's close
Unless the host that isn't close
Is busy, hung or dead.

Thanks, but it doesn't really speak to the problem I fear.