-----Original Message----- From: Owen DeLong [mailto:owen@delong.com] Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 2:50 AM To: George Bonser Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: Only 5x IPv4 ... WRONG! :)
On Oct 20, 2010, at 2:09 AM, George Bonser wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: George Bonser Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 12:30 AM To: Owen DeLong Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: RE: Only 5x IPv4 ... WRONG! :)
It isn't "easy" but it isn't the fault of "v6" in most cases.
Put another way, the set of challenges facing the
operator (the people who use that network to facilitate the delivery of a product ... either on the transmitting or receiving end of that delivery) is quite different from the set of challenges that face a
enterprise/production pure
network operator. And what seems so easy for one may not be so easy for the other.
Dual stacking network gear is less of a problem than dual stacking hundreds or thousands of servers, special purpose appliances, software, etc. of different vendors, ages, and complexity.
I'm not sure why you assume that network operators don't have hundreds or thousands of servers, special purpose appliances, software, etc. of different vendors, ages, and complexity.
Huh? I didn't assume anything. I simply said that an operation that is a pure network play is going have a different experience than an operation that has a lot of other stuff and where network is a smaller part of the overall picture. And even that is going to vary from one organization or even at different locations within an organization. A location with older gear might have a more difficult time of it.
However, other than some very limited exceptions, HE has dual-stacked their entire enterprise, not just their backbone. All of our public facing servers are fully dual-stacked with published AAAA records. Our customers can freely run IPv4, IPv6, or both on our managed servers and/or their own equipment in our colos. All of our IP connectivity clients have access to dual-stack services, and, we actually provide economic incentives for customers to do dual-stack rather than IPv4 only connections to us.
Yes, HE has made considerable investment in v6 and is a tremendous asset to the community in raising awareness, offering encouragement, education, and support in getting people to move to v6 and they "eat their own dog food". All great attributes. It is very apparent that HE "gets it" and has made a major commitment in that area. Other organizations are going to see varying amounts of traction. Hearing things like "we aren't fork lifting all the gear, it isn't like v4 is going away, that facility isn't growing, we will worry about v6 on our next buildout" aren't uncommon. I also hear things like "oh, yeah, we have talked about v6 but don't have a specific plan".
Migrating from IPv4 to dual stack isn't going to get significantly easier by procrastinating at this point. It's only going to get more urgent.
Absolutely agree. Everything anyone builds new at this point should be v6 capable. At least one shouldn't, in my opinion, let things get worse.
Doing something hard on a schedule is hard.
Particularly true if you already run a lean shop and have aggressive work schedules as it is for managing the operation. Telling another department that they are going to need to upgrade the OS (or OSes) on several hundred machines in order to accommodate what they might not perceive as a pressing need is going to depend on the level of support the effort has from the top levels of management. Other organizations are going to see the value in getting it done earlier rather than later. Fundamentally it seems that the extent to which an organization moves on this will depend on many factors and one that is pretty important is their current rate of change in relation to their current size. A large operation that is cruising along with what they have or is maybe shrinking might not want to invest a lot of time, effort, money into changing. One that is growing quickly will have less of a problem rolling out v6 in their new facilities and installing it in the older ones as they quickly outgrow that infrastructure.
Doing something hard in a rush because you failed to schedule it is harder.
Absolutely. What is driving this is an understanding on my part that the extent to which organizations adopt v6 is going to vary widely and so will the reasons for it. I interface with other organizations on a daily basis and I see the entire spectrum of v6 readiness and reasons why it is where it is with those organizations. When I hear someone say "v6 is ..." followed by something or another it has to be tempered with the understanding that while they might be making an absolute statement, that statement is relative to their situation and that same "truth" isn't going to hold for someone else. I would join you in encouraging people get things moving. If you don't at least have a plan, you need one. Now. Really. Because an increasingly large number of customers, peers, and partners are going to be operating v6 native or at least v6 capable and accommodating v4 is going to become an increasingly large pain in the hips for them.
Owen
G