AWS Elastic IP architecture

Mon Jun 1 22:36:03 UTC 2015

On Mon, Jun 01, 2015 at 11:30:00AM -0400, Christopher Morrow wrote:
> I don't get why
> 'ipv6 address on my vm' matters a whole bunch (*in a world where v4 is
> still available to you I mean),

It simplifies infrastructure management considerably.  Having to balance
between "how many subnets will I ever need?" vs "how many machines could I
end up with in a subnet?" is something I never thought would become
annoying, until I had the opportunity to not worry about it...  then it was
frustrating to have to go back to it.  Not having to use a VPN/NAT/jump box
to hit all my infrastructure seems like a small benefit, but it saves having
to maintain a VPN/jump box (and all its attendant annoyances).  Oh, yeah,
never having to faff around with split-horizon DNS management... "Family Guy
Tooth Fairy" on YouTube.  <grin>

In short, there's a whole pile of dodgy hacks we deploy almost without
thinking about it, because "that's just how things are done", to work around
limitations in IPv4 deployments.  Having IPv6 everywhere *within* the
infrastructure makes all of those hacks disappear, and like most things we
"just do because we have to", you don't realise how much of a PITA they were
until they're gone.

- Matt

-- 
And Jesus said unto them, "And whom do you say that I am?"  They replied,
"You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the
ontological foundation of the context of our very selfhood revealed." And
Jesus replied, "What?"	-- Seen on the 'net