----- On Jul 22, 2019, at 5:54 PM, Owen DeLong owen@delong.com wrote: Hi Owen,
On Jul 21, 2019, at 12:28 , Sabri Berisha <sabri@cluecentral.net> wrote:
Only when it becomes cheaper to go IPv6 than to use legacy V4 will V6 be adopted by large corporations. Well, the ones that are governed by beancounters instead of engineers. And by that time, I'll be charging $500/hr to assist $CORP with their IPv6 migration plans.
I can guarantee you that Akamai is very much run by beancounters in addition to engineers. I have first hand experience with that.
I can also assure you that it’s quite unlikely that any of Comcast, Netflix, Facebook, Google, AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon just to name a few of the biggest are managed without due consideration of input from the bean counters. (I’d bet at each of those companies, the day that engineer beats beancounter in a disagreement is rare, indeed).
Sure! Facebook and Google were (are, I can only presume) still dominated by engineers, not beancounters. The other companies you mentioned have little choice; they are consumer ISPs and are faced with a simple truth: IPv6 or a line-item for "IPv4 purchase" on the budget.
The problem with the approach you are taking to IPv6 cost-benefit analysis is that your claim of no ROI doesn’t actually hold true.
It does, it just depends on the organization. And don't get me wrong, you're preaching to the choir here. I am very much in favor of deploying v6. I just have had and still have a hard time getting the resources to do so. As long as the vast majority eyeballs have IPv4, whether via NAT or native, non-subscriber platforms will be able to function. deploying IPv6 is seen as one of the "cool" projects, not a "business critical" one. Facebook and Google were founded at a time where IPv6 was hot and on engineers' radar. Their networks were built from scratch with IPv6 and scalability in mind, and beancounters don't rule those orgs. Here is how I imagine things go at Comcast etc: Comcast Engineer: we need IPv6, will cost $bagsofmoney. Comcast Beancounter: impossible. What's the justification? Comcast Engineer: we will run out of IPv4 and will be unable to add subscribers, and thus grow, and thus increase our marketshare. Comcast Beancounter: approved. Here is how things go in my experience: Content Engineer: we need IPv6, will cost $bagsofmoney. Content Beancounter: impossible. What's the justification? Content Engineer: well, sometime in the future someone will deprecate IPv4 and all eyeballs will only have IPv6. Content Beancounter: when is that going to happen? Content Engineer: I don't know, for now they're using dual stack and all kinds of translation mechanisms. Content Beancounter: come back when it becomes a necessity instead of a luxury. I had that conversation in multiple organizations. According to Google, https://www.google.com/intl/en/ipv6/statistics.html, even today among the eyeballs the adoption rate is a poor 30%. And that graph is not looking like a hockey stick either. It's still very much a chicken and egg problem, in a lot of networks. Unless we come up with a real hard deadline (like we had with y2k), there will always be organizations that won't make the investment. It's either that or wait for a natural tech-refresh, like we've been doing for the last 20 years. Sad, but so far this has been my experience. And again, I wish that things were different. Let's pick 6/6/2026 as IPv4 shutdown day. Thanks, Sabri JNCIE #261