quietly....

Wed Feb 2 20:36:52 UTC 2011

On Wednesday, February 02, 2011 03:16:59 am Iljitsch van Beijnum wrote:
> A clear win. Of course it does mean that people <gasp> have to learn something new when adopting IPv6.

Ever hear of intellectual inertia?  The more that has to be learned to go a new path, the less likely that path will be chosen if another path still works, or can be made work with incremental changes.

There's already too much new to learn, and not as many available hours or people to learn it.

<put on op hat>
What I want is to add an IPv6 subnet or subnets to my already tuned DHCP server config, add IPv6 addresses to the addresses handed out (in the same config clause as the IPv4 addresses are stored, preferably), update the DHCP server software to IPv6-capability, restart the DHCP server, and both IPv4 and IPv6 clients get what they need, through the same already locked down channels, with no other upgrades required.

Takes what, thirty minutes per DHCP server if you're slow?  

Instead, I'll have to completely relearn how dynamic allocation works, learn about and protect against a new attack vector, learn about and deploy new hardware and software more than likely, and in general pull my hair out debugging new code and new platforms.... and so I'll be inclined to keep what works and bandaid it until it cannot be bandaided any more.  Sorry, but those are the operational facts of life.
<take off op hat>

IPv6's uptake has been slow because it is too different, IMO, and thus intellectual inertia (in the complete Newtonian physics sense of the word) kicks in.  IPv4 is a huge mass moving at a large velocity, and the delta force vector to adjust course is too great for many to swallow.  It doesn't seem that different until you add all those pesky little details up.  Try that exercise one day, and add up *all* the differences that operators have to know and implement to go IPv6, and balance that against smaller staffs and smaller budgets.