Another v6 question

Thu Jan 27 06:29:30 UTC 2011

On Jan 26, 2011, at 9:31 PM, Max Pierson wrote:

> >V4 30 years ago -- expected consumption: ~60 /8s of 256.
> >IPv6 today -- expected consumption: Maybe 15 /12s of 4096.
> >The scales in question are vastly different.
> 
> I made no such comparison between the two. The scales are vastly different, but I think you're still missing my point. 30 years ago, no one "expected" cells phones to consume IP's. 30 years ago, no one "expected" xbox's and playstations to consume IP's. Point being is the "unexpected".
> 
I'm not missing your point. I'm saying that in IPv6, we've put enough addresses
in to allow for things nobody has thought of in 30, 60, 90, even 100 years and
then some.

> >Not at all... In my opinion, IPv6 will probably last about 30-50 years. In my opinion, IPv6 addressing will outlast IPv6 usability on other fronts. I >absolutely think we'll have to do this all again. I just don't think that addresses are going to be the thing we run out of next time.
> 
> Ok then, what is it exactly you think we'll run out of in 30-50 years?? Please elaborate.
> 
If I knew, then, I'd be well on my way to much greater wealth. Whatever it is, I am only
certain of the following things about it:

	1.	We have no idea what the requirements will be at this time.
	2.	We have no idea which particular scaling limit in IPv6 will actually drive
		us to the next protocol.
	3.	Our needs in 30-50 years will be different than our needs today.
	4.	This all assumes that we have a human race to care about having an
		internet in 50 years. Such is not necessarily a safe assumption.

> >No, that's not what I said at all. What I said was that addressing isn't going to be the constraint that causes us to have to revamp it next time.
> 
> Once again, please elaborate.
> 
See below... I pretty much did elaborate in another message about
the number of /48s and the construction rate required to consume
them.. I don't know what will cause us to
revamp it next time. I'm just sure there are enough numbers to make
it to that point.

> >The point was that if you're trying to figure out how big routers are
> >going to have to be for near-term IPv6 or even medium-term IPv6
> >deployment, counting the total possible number of prefixes isn't
> >a useful metric because the actual utilization will be nowhere
> >near that large and the numbers are impossible to use as an
> >engineering spec. for any technology yet known.
> 
> Actually, my original post may have been somewhat misleading due to "what a global table would look like in say 3 or 5 years after v4 is exhausted" and "in our routers just to take a full table". I wasn't referring to just v6 deployment moving forward. I didn't mean after v4 goes away completely. I was adding v4 table + v6 table (assuming we dual-stack, if you separate the two, ~4000 prefixes fit quite nicely on just about anything still running today, and that also makes the second question of my original post irrelevant).  We won't need that amount of memory after v4 goes away (probably for quite some time). The prefix count at that point will be significantly lower. I understand that. Apologies for not being clearer.
> 
Well, once IPv6 is more fully deployed, you'll be seeing at least 30,000 and more like 75,000 prefixes in IPv6. That's because there are about 30,000 active ASNs today and given tendencies towards traffic engineering, greater multihoming, easier address acquisition and some other factors, a 2+ growth factor over ASNs wouldn't surprise me in the short term.

> >I'd like to see IPv4 go away in ~3 years. Any faster would be too traumatic.
> >I think 6 years is a perfectly reasonable time frame. I think if it takes 11 years
> >it will be because of significant foot-dragging by some key organizations.
> >I'm not convinced that foot-dragging is as likely as some people are, but,
> >there's enough probability to provide some wiggle room in the numbers.
> 
> I agree, although I do think there will be some foot-dragging, I just don't think it will take 11 years. If anyone at that point is still speaking only v4, IMO they'll only be speaking to "127.0.0.1".
> 
I think there will be quite a bit of foot dragging. I think you misunderstand me.
I'm expecting everyone to be pretty much dual-stacked in the next 3-4 years,
even with foot dragging. I'm expecting us to start seeing IPv4 actually deprecated
as in some providers won't route it any more (or if they do, they'll charge a lot
to do so) in 6-11 years. That's what I mean when I say I'd like to see IPv4
go away in that time frame.

Owen