IPv6 traffic numbers [was: Re: OT - Vint Cerf joins Google]

Mon Sep 12 14:21:29 UTC 2005

On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 15:59:00 +0200
 Simon Leinen <simon at limmat.switch.ch> wrote:
> [CC'ing Stanislav Shalunov, who does the Internet2 weekly reports.]
> 
> Marshall Eubanks writes, in response to Jordi's "8% IPv6" anecdote:
> > These estimates seem way high and need support. Here is a counter-example.
> 

Simon is correct. The numbers I quoted were for protocol 41 traffic,
and presumably more IPv6 is "hidden in plain sight" on the Internet 2
backbone. 

Sorry for the confusion.

Regards
Marshall

> While I'm also skeptical about the representativeness of Jordi's
> estimates, this is a bad counterexample (see below about why):
> 
> > Netflow on Internet 2 for last week 
> 
> > http://netflow.internet2.edu/weekly/20050829/
> 
> > has 6.299 Gigabytes being sent by IPv6, out of a total 383.2
> > Terabytes, or 0.0016% This is backbone traffic, and would not catch
> > intra-Campus traffic, nor would it catch tunnel or VPN traffic,
>                         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^        ^^^^^^^
> 
> Wrong.  What you see here is ONLY tunnel traffic, because the number
> is for IPv6-in-IPv4 (IP protocol 41) traffic.
> 
> Netflow for IPv6 isn't widely used yet.  Our own equipment doesn't
> support it, and I don't think the Junipers used in Abilene do, either
> (someone please correct me if I'm wrong).
> 
> > but it is suggestive.
> 
> Yes, but it's also irrelevant, because Abilene has native IPv6, so
> there is little incentive for sending IPv6 tunneled in IPv4.
> 
> > According to the graph
> > http://netflow.internet2.edu/weekly/longit/perc-protocols41-octets.png
> > the most I2 IPv6 traffic was in  2002, when it was almost 0.6% of the total. 
> 
> I would assume that that was before IPv6 went native on Abilene.
> 
> > It is hard for me to imagine that the situation for commerical US
> > traffic is much different.
> 
> I'm sure there's less
> > There may be similar statistics for Geant - I would be interested to
> > see them.
> 
> I'll look up the GEANT numbers in a minute, stay tuned.
> -- 
> Simon.
> 