Subject: Re: can we please postpone the ipv6 post-mortem?

From: [email-masked] (Noel Chiappa)
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 15:40:14 -0400 (EDT)

> From: james woodyatt <[email-masked]>

    > the v4->v6 transition 

There isn't going to be an "v4->v6 transition". If you're lucky, there will
be a very long (many decades) period of IPv4/IPv4 interoperability.

	Noel

---

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 16:32:08 -0700

> Noel Chiappa wrote:
> There isn't going to be an "v4->v6 transition". If you're lucky, there
> will be a very long (many decades) period of IPv4/IPv6
interoperability.

+1

> Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:
> I can construct a plausible deployment model for IPv6 based on NAT
> boxes. But I can't see a plausible model which does not involve NAT44,
> NAT46 and NAT66 during the transition period and since I am
> anticipating that lasting around thirty years, I can't see much point
> in modeling what comes after.

+1

> This might sound like a completely off the wall suggestion. But is
> it possible that we could use an IPv4 extension header to carry the
> internal address of a NAT-ed host in some way and thus preserve
> end-to-end addressability?

The problem with IP with IP extensions is that too often, sooner or
later they have to be implemented in silicon on the high-end platform.
The "not invented here" syndrome may be a significant obstacle if it
does not come from within a prominent router vendor.

> Of course one objection that would be made against this is likely to
> be that it solves the problem a bit too well and eliminates the need
> for IPv6 entirely. The other objection is going to be that we are now
> so far into the deployment of IPv6 that 'it is too late to change'.

That too.

> What if the key to IPv6 deployment is the realization that IPv6 can
> only be deployed after we have solved the IPv4 address exhaustion
problem?

I suspect that people with vested interests in IPv6 will not like this
idea, as solving the v4 exhaustion problem would eliminate a
considerable incentive to deploy v6 and create a threat to the very
existence of v6.

In any case, I don't think anything is going to happen for at least 3
years. As of today we are in the waiting game; we have to let IPv4
exhaust and assess who is hurting and how much pain everyone feels.

Michel.