Nathan Ward wrote: [..]
Isn't the driver going to be scarcity and/or expense of v4 addresses?
Sure, but it's not as simple as just giving v6 addresses to end users one day, even if your entire network and backend systems support it.
Why not? If folks are still using Windows 98 by then I surely hope they can't have any connectivity to the Internet. The word "SpamDrone" comes to mind for those old versions. As Windows XP is already out for the last couple of years and has fully working IPv6 support, Vista is there also with fully working IPv6 support, the OS should definitely not be a problem anymore. For folks without money, all the Open Sourcish OS's also do IPv6 perfectly fine, some even already from the installer.
If you were an end user, calling up your ISP to get a new DSL line, and were told you couldn't have an IPv4 address, only IPv6, and "Sorry sir, [..]
Your grandma really doesn't know what "IP" is, nor will she ever care. Ever heared of this thing called "HTTP Proxy"? That solves 90% of those issues. Takes care of mail also as most intarweb-users are using webbased mailers anyways. They work perfectly fine and can do IPv4 and IPv6, using IPv6 as the transport. Otherwise, you can always abuse http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net or http://ipv4gate.sixxs.net for the other way around.
Now that NAT-PT is deprecated (ie. can't be used as an excuse to not move), we need to move the large (and small) content providers to dual-stack, before we move any customers to v6-only. Content providers have all the IPv4 addresses they need already, they're not going to be asking for more any time soon. If someone has some bright ideas on how to transition without loss of service to *someone*, I'm all ears. (IPv4 NAT is not a bright idea.)
What about looking up the word "transition" in the dictionary and comparing it to "flag day". There is no flag day, it will all be gradual. Some people have been providing commercial IPv6 connectivity already since as early as 2001 (and some even earlier!) Also, if you want to provide those users IPv4 access, you can always hurdle them behind an IPv4 NAT. They are used to that today already anyway.
In addition, when 2010 [1] rolls around, are the free CPE that your customers were given in the last 7 days upgradable to support IPv6?
You should have thought about that already, like, 5 years ago!? Also, you can always just TUNNEL over them. RFC1918 or something similar to the enduser and then provide them with a NAT to have a public IPv4 address so that they can reach legitimate resources. Then provide them with a tunnel so they can use IPv6 in full strength. But that is a doomsday scenario. Running out of addresses doesn't mean that IPv4 stops to work.
This is, of course, assuming we don't hold off until we've got a different IPv6 architecture as a result of the RAWS stuff.
Routing and addressing should be separate. Providing blocks of addresses to organizations that can justify the need for them is great. Reforming the routing system is a thing that can be done later when there is somebody who find the magic bullet that folks will accept. Can take some time of course, but up to then it appears that vendors of routing equipment can scale...
[2] While we're here, can someone point me in the direction of any ongoing discussion/work in this area? I attended the APRICOT workshop, but where to go to keep up with things/get involved isn't obvious.
As mentioned in various places: ram@iab.org, see https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ram Greets, Jeroen