[ppml] IPv6 Justifications

[Michael.Dillon at radianz.com]

>> Would someone please explain to me why in gods name ARIN thinks they 
>> need
>> to continue the IP justification anal-probes into v6?

>Swamp (or repeating history) avoidance?

Having some swamp is a good thing. In fact, today we don't have enough 
swamp and really should be looking at an orderly expansion of it in IPv4.

When the swamp originally came about, it was bad because it stressed the 
limits of ancient IPv4 technology. But today, in comparison with the early 
90's, we have cheap and plentiful RAM and we have plenty of spare CPU 
power.

For IPv6, I support a looser policy for early adopters. Let's pick a magic 
number of IPv6 blocks and use that as the end of the early adopter era. 
For instance, if we believe that having 4,000 IPv6 blocks allocated in 
North America represents the end of the early adopter era, then let's have 
a looser policy for v6 allocations that is in effect until that magic 
number of allocations is done. This is one way in which we can avoid an 
uncontrolled swamp like we had with v4.

Second suggestion for swamp avoidance. For all IPv6 allocations the 
organization must maintain up-to-date contact information with ARIN. If 
they fall out of contact for 6 months, the allocation is revoked and will 
be re-issued to someone else.

As for my comment about needing more swamp in v4, I believe that we need a 
policy that allows ARIN to allocate blocks as small as /24 out of an 
identifiable aggregate that is know to be used only for small allocations. 
As part of this change, ARIN should apply to IANA for an allocation from 
the swamp space to be used for these small allocations. Of course, these 
allocations would still be subject to the multihoming requirement. The 
intention is not that these allocations should make it easier for ISPs to 
get initial PI space but that it should make it easier for organizations 
with static long-term IP requirements to get PI space. ISPs are still a 
special beast because their IP requirements grow continually and if we did 
allow them to get a small swamp block then we would need strict rules to 
renumber out of that space after they grow out of a /24.

P.S. 
To anyone thinking about ARIN policy. Please don't try and make policy to 
solve a problem that you see today. Policies are not a tool for quick 
fixes. They are a way of creating a long-term environment. Because of 
this, you need to consider the general situation as well as the specific. 
And you need to think about what will happen years from now as well as 
today. IPv4 policies in particular need to reflect the fact that the IPv6 
Internet is here today and therefore IPv4 no longer needs to be the 
solution to every problem. Some problems, such as address space 
exhaustion, are best solved by pushing them onto IPv6.

--Michael Dillon