[arin-discuss] Implementing IPv6

[John Curran]

On Feb 28, 2013, at 2:51 AM, John Von Essen <john at quonix.net> wrote:

> I dont know why this thread keeps going. IPv6 implementation is SO easy.
> 
> Step 1: Call your BGP peers and ask them to give you dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 and setup an IPv6 BGP session.
> Step 2: Configure the WAN link on your routers with dual-stack IPv4/IPv6 and assign the IPv6 address given to you by your BGP peers.
> Step 3: Add the BGP session info for v6
> Step 4: Add your v6 advertisements
> Step 5: Your DONE
> 
> I have Cogent, Level3, and Abovenet peers. It literally took 1-2 days to get completely setup with IPv6, I just emailed them, requested dual-stack, got my v6 address, brought up the peer's BGP session for v6, and boom I was done.
> ...
> Lets not confuse implementation and adoption. v6 is extremely easy to implement, adoption is a different story. I've been native v6 for over 2 years, and of my 300+ datacenter customers - alone one is using v6 - the rest are oblivious.

John -

  Excellent job - offering IPv6 to your customers is a step ahead of many reading 
  this list... (although I'd expect that you've also done some steps not shown in 
  IPv6 monitoring and management to make sure it keeps running :-)

  Here's the one large step which is problematic for everyone:

  - You should inform your datacenter customers that it's relatively easy to 
    get IPv6 interfaces configured on their firewalls/load-balancers, and (for
    those running public facing applications) testing their applications with
    IPv6 and configuring this in addition to IPv4 might be prudent given that 
    the growth in connected homes and devices nearly guarantees some of the 
    new connections will be via IPv6 in the near future.  While IPv4 alone will 
    continue to work, but the path between your customer's application and their 
    customers will get more and more convoluted over the next few years if your 
    customer's applications are only reachable via IPv4.

  I've run a datacenter providing colocation and hosting services, and do indeed
  know that this step is not at all normal (as customers feel know what they want 
  and telling them they need something more, even at no cost, isn't typical) but 
  we're also experiencing a one-of-kind transition in the Internet, and it is 
  going to take some atypical actions on everyone's part to make this happen.

  If you'd like any help with this (e.g. a guest writeup suitable for your blog 
  or newsletter, or you'd like me to come up to Philly to a customer gathering
  and speak on the same topic), just let me know. 

Thanks!
/John

John Curran
President and CEO
ARIN