[ppml] Policy Proposal 2005-1: Provider-independent IPv6 Assignments for End Sites - Last Call

[cja@daydream.com]

Thanks for sending this Vince.  I too remember those days when things
were melting down.   I often feel that no one else remembers.   It is
hard to watch the same mistakes being made over and over again.

---Cathy

On 4/16/06, Vince Fuller <vaf at cisco.com> wrote:
> IMHO, this policy is a mistake.
>
> Quoting from the policy proposal:
>
> > This policy proposes:
> >
> > o Large and/or multihomed End Sites receive assignments directly from ARIN.
> >
> > This policy applies to organizations with networks that are large and/or
> > multihomed. Like their IPv4 counterparts they do not make assignments to
> > external organizations. They instead assign space internally to their
> > own facilities. Similarly to IPv4 These internal assignments are not
> > submitted to ARIN via swip/rwhois.
>
> It is precisely the "large and/or multihomed End Sites" that are driving
> growth of IPv4 routing state to be super-linear. Adopting this policy is
> a giant step toward non-scalable routing by the creation of an ipv6 routing
> "swamp" that will make the IPv4 global routing situation seem positively
> arid by comparison.
>
> Implementing this policy in the hopes that it will spur adoption of ipv6
> smacks of the "tail wagging the dog", of doing *something* rather than the
> *right* thing so that "progress" can be demonstrated. Such an illusion of
> progress will only alleviate pressure to fix the real flaws in ipv6 (i.e.
> co-mingling of the endpoint identifier and routing locator in a single
> "address" field) that render it incompatible with the goal of a scalable
> routing system.
>
> Keep in mind that exponential and quadratic growth curves ramp-up very
> slowly when initially dealing with small numbers. I fear that by the time
> the consequences of this policy decision are felt, by the time the ipv6
> routing state growth curves are observed to be super-linear, it will be
> difficult or impossible to deploy a something to handle that growth. Few
> people realize or remember how close the Internet routing system came to
> collapse during the pre-CIDR days...
>
>         --Vince
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