On Feb 28, 2011, at 12:34 PM, Joe Abley wrote:
On 2011-02-28, at 15:27, Randy Bush wrote:
o if ipv6 can not operate as the only protocol, and we will be out of ipv4 space and have to deploy 6-only networks, it damned well better be able to stand on its own.
Do you think I was suggesting that IPv6 as a protocol doesn't need to be able to stand on its own two feet? Because I wasn't; that's patently absurd.
It is both absurd and pretty much exactly what you said.
However, a fixation on v6-only operation makes no sense for general-purpose deployment when most content and peers are only reachable via IPv4.
I guess this is a matter of perspective. For some of us that already have complete dual stack deployments, focusing on the issues present in IPv6-only operation is just the next logical step. In some cases, I would say that the v6-only considerations are well worth considering as you prepare to deploy dual-stack so that you don't deploy dual-stack in such a way as to create unnecessary inter-protocol dependencies that will hurt you later. The reality is that IPv6-only networks are not likely in the foreseeable future is only a true statement if your foreseeable future ends in the past. There are already a certain number of functional operating deployed IPv6-only networks. Further, it's not going to be more than a few months before we start seeing networks that have very limited or degraded IPv4 capabilities, if any, due to the inability to grant addresses to new networks in some areas.
I appreciate that there are walled gardens, captive mobile applications, telemetry networks and other niche applications for which v6-only networks make sense today. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the network that supports what the average user thinks of as the Internet.
And how do you think the average residential end user is going to see the IPv4 internet next year?
The immediate task at hand is a transition from IPv4-only to dual stack, regardless of how many NATs or other transition mechanisms the IPv4 half of the dual stack is provisioned through.
Yes, but, given the nearly immediate runout of IPv4, I would say that doing so in a way that best facilitates IPv6-only hosts being functional is very much worthy of consideration in this process. Owen