shim6 @ NANOG (forwarded note from John Payne)

Wed Mar 1 19:49:15 UTC 2006

Kevin Day wrote:
> If you include "Web hosting company" in your definition of ISP,  that's 
> not true. Unless you're providing connectivity to 200 or more  networks, 
> you can't get a /32. If all of your use is internal(fully  managed 
> hosting) or aren't selling leased lines or anything, you are  not 
> considered an LIR by the current IPv6 policies.

Leased lines are not required.  You can assign a /48 to any
separate organization you provide connectivity to even if they are
colocated.  A business model where you don't assign /48's to any
customers does seem to preclude being an LIR.  Web hosting companies
that do assign /48's to some customers would qualify.

> Even the proposed ARIN 2006-4 assignment policy for "end sites"  doesn't 
> help a lot of small to mid sized hosting companies. For that,  to just 
> get a /48, you need to already have a /19 or larger, and be  using 80% 
> of that. That's 6553 IPs being utilized. If you're running  a managed 
> hosting company (name based vhosts) and deploying 1 IP per  web server, 
> you're pretty huge before you've hit 6553 devices. Even  assuming 20% of 
> that is wasted, you're still talking about more than  5000 servers. 40 
> 1U servers per rack, you need to have 125 racks of  packed to the gills 
> servers before you'd qualify for PI space. That  excludes every 
> definition I have of "small-to-medium" in the hosting  arena.

The latest revision of 2005-1 is also on the table.  It would allow
for a /48 assignment for any organization that qualifies for IPv4 space,
(even /22).  Name based virtual hosting is not required either.

> You don't get PI space, and Shim6 is looking like your only  alternative 
> for multihoming.

We are only limited by our own imaginations and and by what actually
works.  This is a hard problem to solve and the solution doesn't have
to come from the IETF.

- Kevihn