Why some of us are IPv6 holdouts (Was: /8 end user assignment?)

Sat Aug 6 22:40:27 UTC 2005

--On August 6, 2005 6:56:27 PM +0000 "Christopher L. Morrow" 
<christopher.morrow at mci.com> wrote:

> a good email over all explaining more parts of the pie :) sweet!

Thanks... I try to add something to the threads when I weigh in...
>
<..>

> ok, good... now in 5 years when there are 'many more' v6 users are you
> still in this boat? should some of this work get started also? Would that
> be facilitated by getting some actual logs?

The point really, was that there are many packages of software.  Open 
Source, Commercial, in-house, front-end and back room that will need to be 
looked at and outfitted.  It's happening, but it will take a lot of work, 
and probably time.  In 5 years, I don't know.  I hope not.  I hope by long 
before then that a majority of my concerns are addressed.  It will take my 
employer/org about six months, to one year to fully light IPv6 for 
production.  Maybe a bit longer.  We've internal software to worry about, 
and that estimate excludes any set-backs from external sources, like 
Juniper deciding to twist everyone's arms for IPv6 licensing.  I can leave 
that to a separate thread/argument though.  I do have about a paragraph or 
two of venom on that topic if anyone is interested. :)

>> Maybe I'm more concerned about what (potentially bad) things happen on my
>> networks.  Maybe not.  Either way, that issue alone means a LOT of other
>> software than the web server, load balancer, and routers need to
>> understand (or speak) IPv6.  There's a huge ecosystem of software here.
>> A lot of it hasn't been written in such a way that it takes into account
>> any other addressing/networking scheme than IPv4.
>
> agreed, but that problem doesn't seem to be getting addressed any better
> than the lb/router/web-server problem doe sit?

No not particularly.  The web server software, routers, and load balancers 
in my networks are all IPv6 capable, aware, and ready.  What isn't at this 
point is management tools, and an unknown number of customer applications. 
I work primarily in web hosting.  This means that there are lots of 
unrelated applications that may make turning on IPv6 difficult.

I'm not saying it's impossible.  I'm not saying it won't happen.  Heck I 
want it to happen.  I want to go IPv6, get out of the way of the address 
shortage that will be.  I wanted to point out the bigger picture amongst 
these threads of half answers and single issues.  This isn't a one issue 
thing.  Everyone here on NANOG can make it that if they want to, but I 
doubt that most of us do.  The difficulty is in pointing this out to the 
'sky is falling migrate today!' drum beaters, most of us are working on it, 
but we're not the ones that need to be haranged.  SW developers need to be 
educated too, as much as, maybe more so than the ops community.  They're 
the ones that will ultimately make or break this thing.

We can build a network however we damn well please.  But in the end the 
network is just a road.  We need applications.  Cars.  And people to drive 
those cars....use those applications.  That's what it comes down to. 
Multicast has limited traction not necessarily because of limited technical 
merit or ability, but because there are few applications that make use of 
it.

As apps improve and start to support or require IPv6, more and more will 
roll it out or be forced to roll it out.  Some of us are being held up by 
applications, hardware, or upsterams lack of v6, but that won't last 
forever, and it can't last much longer or we could very realistically miss 
the deadline, whatever it ends up being, for the 'last of the v4 space'.

--
"Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors
into trouble of all kinds."
-- Samuel Butler