Thus spake "Paul Vixie" <paul@vix.com>
Actually, the policy also specifies that you must not be an end-site.
well, you sure caught me this time. in august 2002 when the /32 in question first came to isc, i had not read the policy. so i don't know if it was different from the current policy. i assume it was, because i know that we qualified, officially, under the rules at the time the /32 came to us.
Okay, that explains how ISC got its PI allocation -- it's legacy/grandfathered. It appears Iljitsch would have been correct to say "there is no _new_ PI in IPv6 unless you're an internet exchange or a root server." As long as this remains true, there are nearly a dozen identified reasons why people would want/need ULAs, which was the original point of this subthread. The RIRs, of course, are free to make IPv6 PI space available, and most of the justification for ULAs would disappear if that were to occur. However, there is no indication that this is coming, so absent any other ways to meet those needs, ULAs have a purpose.
I'd be particularly interested in knowing what ISC said who would be their 200 other organizations who they intended to allocate the address space (their employees?), and how ISC would not be an end-site.
This is a more generic issue, of course.
of course. in august 2002 there were no v6 isp's. isc is multihomed, so it's difficult to imagine what isp we could have taken address space from then, or now.
According to multi6, you will get PA space from each of your ISPs and overlay a prefix from each on every subnet. I'll save y'all another rant on the workability of that model... Some fear that you would more likely just generate a ULA, use that internally, and NAT at the borders. Or maybe you'd stick with IPv4 RFC1918 space internally and NAT to IPv6 PA space at your borders.
if arin's allocation policy for ipv6 does not take account of multihomed non-allocating enterprises then either that policy will change, or the internet exchange point business model will be dead.
I don't understand why exchanges would suffer; the real threat is that enterprises simply won't use IPv6 until IPv4 space is completely exhausted -- and perhaps even after it is.
speaking as someone who's had too much coffee today, it seems possible that the preponderance of arin's membership could prefer a pure transit world to a mixed transit/IXP world.
I'm not holding my breath waiting for ARIN's members -- largely ISPs -- to approve end sites getting IPv6 PI space, something that would make multihoming more likely, reduce customer lock-in, and increase routing table sizes; it's contrary to their collective interests. S Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking