V6 still not supported

Thu Mar 24 10:07:53 UTC 2022

Mark Delany wrote:
> On 24Mar22, Greg Skinner via NANOG allegedly wrote:
>
>> straightforward transition plan
>> in-hand working transition strategy
>> nor a straightforward transition
> Any such "transition plan" whether "working" or "straightforward" is logically
> impossible. Why anyone thinks such a mythical plan might yet be formulated some 20+ years
> after deploying any of ipv6, ipv4++ or ipv6-lite is absurd.

You are correct that there is no way to represent 128 bits inside of a 
32 bit field without modifications. Especially past the point of early 
adoption when there was still a 1:1 ratio of IPv4 and IPv6 actual 
addressing possible.

However, even transition mechanism that would have relied upon IPv4 
modifications would have had a better chance of being rolled out as part 
of normal update cycle at this point than mass deployment of IPv6 which 
requires a bit more than normal update cycle.

>
> The logic goes: we support legacy "do nothing" ipv4 deployments forever. We also expect
> those same deployments to invest significant effort, cost and risk to move off their
> perfectly functioning network for no self-serving benefit.

No surprise that hasnt happened very quickly. You have that backwards. 
Legacy ipv4 do-nothing deployments have absolutely no need of support. 
IPv6 needs their support so that non-legacy deployments of IPv4 wont 
need continued support.

>
> There be unicorns and denial of human nature.
>
>
> Mark.
>

Human nature is that deployment of a technology when the larger benefit 
is unrealized in the short term by the party expected to expend the 
costs of the deployment is unlikely to have significant widespread 
initial momentum and is quite likely to have lingering inability to 
complete a global deployment.

As that is the case, efforts on both protocols are warranted.

Joe