Only 5x IPv4 ... WRONG! :)

Wed Oct 20 09:49:49 UTC 2010

On Oct 20, 2010, at 2:09 AM, George Bonser wrote:

> 
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: George Bonser 
>> Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:30 AM
>> To: Owen DeLong
>> Cc: nanog at nanog.org
>> Subject: RE: Only 5x IPv4 ... WRONG! :)
>> 
>> It isn't "easy" but it isn't the fault of "v6" in most cases.
>> 
> 
> Put another way, the set of challenges facing the enterprise/production
> operator (the people who use that network to facilitate the delivery of
> a product ... either on the transmitting or receiving end of that
> delivery) is quite different from the set of challenges that face a pure
> network operator.  And what seems so easy for one may not be so easy for
> the other.
> 
> Dual stacking network gear is less of a problem than dual stacking
> hundreds or thousands of servers, special purpose appliances, software,
> etc. of different vendors, ages, and complexity.
> 
I'm not sure why you assume that network operators don't have hundreds
or thousands of servers, special purpose appliances, software, etc.
of different vendors, ages, and complexity.

Yes, it's easier to dual-stack the backbone of an ISP than the entire
enterprise of an ISP. That's no surprise since dual-stacking the backbone
of an enterprise would be easier than dual-stacking the entire enterprise
as well.

However, other than some very limited exceptions, HE has dual-stacked
their entire enterprise, not just their backbone. All of our public facing 
servers are fully dual-stacked with published AAAA records. Our
customers can freely run IPv4, IPv6, or both on our managed servers
and/or their own equipment in our colos. All of our IP connectivity
clients have access to dual-stack services, and, we actually provide
economic incentives for customers to do dual-stack rather than IPv4
only connections to us.

Migrating from IPv4 to dual stack isn't going to get significantly easier
by procrastinating at this point. It's only going to get more urgent.

Doing something hard on a schedule is hard.

Doing something hard in a rush because you failed to schedule it
is harder.

Owen