202203071610.AYC Re: Making Use of 240/4 NetBlock

Sun Mar 13 09:04:14 UTC 2022

Saku Ytti wrote:
> What if many/most large CDN, cloud, tier1 would commonly announce a 
> plan to drop all IPv4 at their edge 20 years from now? How would that 
> change our work? What would we stop doing and what would we start doing? 

I cant see how it would change or do anything IPv6-related for myself 
for at least 19 years. And I suspect most others would fall somewhere 
between that and never.

However, such an announcement would actually signal that we should do 
all those things now to IPv4 that will take 10 years to be useful, 
because then they will be useful for at least another 10 years.

Seriously, we have already had this sort of experiment play out numerous 
times, both with a governing body and without. We already know how it goes.

With a governing body: lack of progress right up until the deadline, 
gnashing of teeth ensues until deadline is extended, more often than not 
comprehensive conversion finally completes, later than scheduled.

Without: lack of progress right up to deadline, teeth gnashing, deadline 
is arbitrarily extended, nothing much changes and deadline is forgotten.

When IPv4 is properly obsoleted, we will see many of those announcements 
and some will matter and most wont. As it should be. However 
proclamations are not going to obsolete IPv4. As we have already seen.

I dont think advocating for large players to band together to form their 
own internet-ops standard body is going to save IPv6 and the internet. 
More likely it will doom both as we know it.

Here is an equally unlikely thought experiment.

What if many/most large CDN, cloud, tier1 would commonly announce a plan 
to compatibly extend IPv4, citing a lack of progress in IPv6 deployment 
and resulting IPv4 elimination as well as a stagnant stalemate on any 
such efforts within the would-be-relevant standard bodies?

Joe