V6 still not supported

Wed Mar 23 19:06:46 UTC 2022

John Curran wrote:
>
>> On 23 Mar 2022, at 1:34 AM, Joe Maimon <jmaimon at jmaimon.com 
>> <mailto:jmaimon at jmaimon.com>> wrote:
>> ...
>> Since IPv6 was born of the effort to fix the upcoming address 
>> shortage visible at the time and to prevent and alleviate the 
>> resulting negative effects, the fact that it did not and that 
>> globally v4 address shortage is still a problem is a tally of 
>> multiple years of failure.
>
> Joe -
>
>     It all depends on your measure of success; i.e. the victory
>     conditions that one wishes to set.
>

Hi John,

That is the crux of my argument.

>      If the victory conditions are “has displaced the previous IP4
>     protocol”, then we’re certainly not there (and may never achieve
>     at such an outcome for many decades to come…)
>
>     If the victory conditions are “provide an updated IP protocol that
>     the larger providers can use as an alternative for address their
>     continued growth requirements”, then it is indeed a success - as
>     proof one just has to look at major broadband and mobile network
>     deployments that use IPv6 to enable their continued growth…  (and
>     IPv4 on many of those networks is just network application shim to
>     a gateway service that’s present for obsolete software to use.)
>

I define the victory as avoiding the occurrence of the inevitable 
constraints that v4 shortage was going to have. I also include the 
negative effects and avoidable investment of time, effort and capex into 
CGN and the like in to what IPv6 was intended to avoid.

Perhaps a better statement of the failure is that the IPv6 deployment 
failed in its original objective to alleviate IPv4 address shortage 
before the effects became widespread and significant. I think that is a 
least common denominator we can mostly all agree on.
>
>
>     The fact that the majority of the network operators don’t use IPv6
>     is irrelevant under such victory conditions, so long as those who
>     needed to have it due to their growth requirements have had it as
>     a viable option.  Many of the largest networks out there (service
>     providers, cloud, social media) are running IPv6 as their primary
>     infrastructure because they prefer the long-term economics of that
>     architecture given their needs – so by that measure one can
>     consider definitely a success.
>

These are also the network operators who can use all the v4 not spent on 
infrastructure as well as the gobs of couch cushion v4 they have 
relative to their overall size to meet customer specific demand. So v6 
has mostly helped the large carriers, in increasing their internal 
supply of v4, in optimizing their use of CGN, in cohesive infrastructure 
addressing. Is that an overall internet success?

The end users and other network players not in similar circumstances 
have not benefited nearly as much. And they wont until IPv4 becomes 
optional. Now for many, Global IPv4 is indeed optional, we call them 
eyeballs and the loser here is the original concept of the end2end internet.

>
>     That doesn’t meant everyone has to run IPv6 – if your network
>     isn’t growing that much and you’ve got enough IPv4 addresses for
>     your needs then by all means continue to use just IPv4..
>

And then take the blame for why IPv6 deployment is not happening fast 
enough...
>
>
>     However, recognize that IPv6 deployment continues to grow, and
>     that means there could easily be a “tipping point” sometime in
>     your future – i.e. a point in time when your organization needs to
>     support IPv6 because of internal or external requirements  – and
>     it’s probably best for networking engineers to be up-to-speed &
>     comfortable with IPv6 by that point (or ready to do something else
>     for a living)
>
> Thanks!
> /John

Agreed and as you have pointed out, this is our continued hope. That 
doesnt mean victory is assured and inevitable, the longer this drags out.

Always a pleasure,

Joe
>
>