My day to day is primarily supporting high-performance research computing on the network side if I can add new functionality without incurring accquisition costs or operational expenses AND not changing experimental regimes in my area of responsibility that is a BIG win and one that 'slides past the accountants'. As it stands now IPv6 functionality requires that the researchers replace their network connected instruments many of which are purpose built. Some of the instruments are old (but network attached) and are used in long term experiments and instrument replacement would invalidate the results. A interoperable IPv6 would have been adopted quickly in my environment especially since it could have been added along with routine scheduled network element software maintenance. With the current IPv6 implementation I have to 1 - Get new (non-multihomed) address space from each of our upstreams 2 - Replace network elements with IPv6 compatible network elements and S/W 3 - Convince all the researchers to dump all their instruments and buy new ones 4 - Retrain entire staff to support IPv6 No matter how hard I try I just am not going to be able to make any cogent argument which will allow the implementation of IPv6 since it appears to offer no benefits to the user community which in my case is extremely well informed on technologies which will benefit their research. The best I can hope for is IPv4 to IPv6 gateways. Scott C. McGrath On Wed, 6 Jul 2005, Edward Lewis wrote:
At 10:57 -0400 7/6/05, Scott McGrath wrote:
IPv6 would have been adopted much sooner if the protocol had been written as an extension of IPv4 and in this case it could have slid in under the accounting departments radar since new equipment and applications would not be needed.
Sliding anything past the accountants is bad practice. Is the goal to run IPv6 or to run a communications medium to support society? If it costs $1M to adopt IPv6 in the next quarter, what would you take the $1M from? (I used to work at a science research center. Having a good network wasn't the goal, doing science was. Without good science, there would be no FY++ budget for a better network.)
The Internet serves society, society owes nothing to the Internet. Members of this list may prioritize communications technology, other members of society may prioritize different interests and concerns. That is why IPv6 must offer a benefit greater than it's cost.
-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Edward Lewis +1-571-434-5468 NeuStar
If you knew what I was thinking, you'd understand what I was saying.