NANOG 40 agenda posted

Thu May 31 12:37:44 UTC 2007

> > Isn't his point that y! could offer IPv6 e-mail in parallel to the 
> > existing IPv4 service, putting the IPv6 machines in a subdomain 
> > ipv6.yahoo.com, so that end users and networks who want to 
> do it can 
> > do so without bothering the others?
> 
> This doesn't sound at all like a transitional plan 
> whatsoever.  If my home and office have v6 connections, but a 
> hotel I am staying at does not, I shouldn't need to start 
> reconfiguring layer 7 properties in my applications.

Yes you should! You are an early adopter and that is exactly what early
adopters do during a technology transition. They also complain loudly,
and in technical detail, about what they had to do to make things work
and that feedback is invaluable to the people tweaking systems to make
them ready for the masses. So stop complaining about it unless you have
a specific instance that you experienced, in which case please provide
full technical details.

> Some of my colleagues wont even know how to.

Then they are clearly not early adopters and have a minimal role to play
during the transition. Don't bother them until we have sorted all the
bugs out.

The point is that we do not have to solve ALL IPV6 ISSUES FIRST, and
then start using it. That's not the way any technology transition works.
We are now at the point where anyone who wishes to, has access to the
software that they need to trial IPv6 in some form or other. We need to
encourage technically inclined people to actually deploy and use IPv6 on
a regular basis and start feeding back their experiences so that issues
can be dealt with. Content providers like Google and Yahoo will soon
take note of the activity and find some way to join in.

The fact is that IPv4 is running down to the exhaustion point in 3 to 4
years. The impacts of that will start being felt much sooner, probably
within the next 12 months. That means we all have to roll up our sleeves
and start trialing IPv6, climbing the learning curve, and providing
trial services. Fortunately, there are some people (in R&E mostly) who
have up to 10 years of operational experience with IPv6 so we are not
starting from scratch.

Over the past few days it is clear that a lot of North American
companies are further along the IPv6 deployment curve than was
previously believed. 

--Michael Dillon