[ppml] alternative realities

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: ppml-bounces at arin.net [mailto:ppml-bounces at arin.net]On Behalf Of
>Mark Beland
>Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2007 3:43 PM
>To: Kevin Kargel
>Cc: ppml at arin.net
>Subject: Re: [ppml] alternative realities
>
>
>Kevin,
>First off, I think I'm one of the 'smaller guys'.. (two /20's).. I don't
>know if my concerns here are well founded,
>but the way I can see this going over, the big guys won't be caught out
>in the cold, they'll strategically buy out a
>few legacy ipv4 holders making sure they have got all the addresses they
>need.........

I think they will, but I also think that this will merely stave off the
inevitable.

>If the big guys have ample
>supply of ipv4 addresses, why switch... This forces your competitors
>(the little guys) to put customers on ipv6..
>
>My concern here, bottom line, is some ISP's being forced to put users on
>ipv6 while others are not...

Mark, I have the same concern.  But here is the deal.  The small providers
are dancing with elephants - they always have been.  There are 3 big
elephants in this deal.  First is when the supply of IPv4 runs out.
Second is what Microsoft does with Vista and it's following operating
systems
with regards to IPv6.  Third is the uptake rate of Vista and the following
Windows operating systems.

As a small provider you just have to come to terms with the fact that we
have
absolutely zero control over these three elephants.

If IPv4 runout happens after Vista uptake is well established, we will be
fine.

If Microsoft doesen't completely screw up the IPv6 implementation in the
Windows desktop OS's we will be fine.

The first factor is determined by the users, how quickly they abandon their
old PC hardware and buy into the new dual-core stuff.  Hardware prices out
there are -awfully- cheap, but Vista really breaks a LOT of software.  While
there is IPv6 for XP, it isn't on by default - and there's LOTS of users
out there running hardware they got from their friends or from the local
chop shop where the user is missing the XP install media, and getting them
up on it will be a challenge.

The second factor is going to be determined by what the major elephants like
Ebay, and so on, do for IPv6 deployment and how quickly they offer access
via IPv6 to their servers, and how the Microsoft clients behave when faced
with
the following:

testhost# nslookup
Default Server:  dns1.ipinc.net
Address:  65.75.192.10

> www.kame.net
Server:  dns1.ipinc.net
Address:  65.75.192.10

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    www.kame.net
Address:  203.178.141.194

> set q=AAAA
> www.kame.net
Server:  dns1.ipinc.net
Address:  65.75.192.10

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:    www.kame.net
Address:  2001:200:0:8002:203:47ff:fea5:3085

>

Question - if the Vista client is dual-stacked, and sees this, what does it
-pefer- to use?  IPv4 or IPv6?

How Microsoft solves those kinds of questions is going to largely dictate
the
speed of IPv6 deployment I think.  If they do stupid things, which is SOP
for them with networking decisions, then IPv6 deployment will be years
longer
than it should be.

Note that with the above example, I don't see IPv6 records for ebay,
cnn.com,
etc.

>I think there
>will be a great deal of resistance from users..... especially when they
>realize that they have a small fraction of the
>services available on ipv6 (consider peer-to-peer applications) .......
>Obviously, over time, this will change,
>but this will put some providers (I think all the little ones) at a
>significant disadvantage once they run out of ipv4
>space.
>

Maybe, maybe not.  It all depends on when runout happens and how rapidly
IPv6 OS's enter production.

If your a small ISP that runs out of public IPv4 then as long as your
customers are all IPv6 compliant, then it should be a simple matter
to build a IPv6->IPv4 proxy.  Both mod_proxy in Apache can do
this as well a Squid.  Of if you don't want to build a proxy, have
customers use the following:

http://ipv6gate.sixxs.net/

>I think we'll see users demanding both ipv4 and ipv6 (at first)...... In
>an ideal situation, like you say, the
>transition occurs naturally.... But I think what will happen is that
>ISP's won't offer ipv6 until Arin nearly runs
>out of ipv4 addresses. Then we won't have ipv4 addresses to give them,
>and ipv4 will be the new selling feature,
>customers will shop for isp's who can offer them ipv4

Well you can avoid that problem very simply by handling the IPv4/IPv6
stuff behind the scenes for the customers and not making a big deal about
it in your marketing.

Customers shop for -connectivity-  If you can offer them connectivity
they aren't going to care if they are on public IPv4, or translated IPv4,
or public IPv6, or IPv6 proxied to IPv4. As long as everything works and
they can get where they want to go.

............. I
>don't think this situation is in anyone's best interest.
>But the big guys will probably be in a better position because they'll
>be able to find addresses..?.. ... ... I just wish
>we could take a harder line focused on discontinuing v4 rather than just
>letting it die out, as this would avoid the
>supply and demand situation that I see happening... ... Am I'm just
>being a pessimist here?
>

I agree with this, insofar that ANY ISP that wants to continue to do
things "the same way we have always done them", meaning, running IPv4 only,
is going to be at a disadvantage once they run out of IPv4, in a post-IPv4-
runout world.

And for sure, there is always going to be expense switching from "the
same way we have always done things" to a dual-stack or IPv6-only-with-proxy
environment.  Those expenses will DECREASE further in the future as they
always do with any technological improvement.  So the ISP's that are
able to delay IPv6 switchover as long as possible will have it the
cheapest, and will benefit from all of the other work that everyone
else has done.

I agree if there was any way to "force" switchover to take place all
at the same time, it would benefit most those who seek to "continue to
do things the same way we have always done them"

But, ultimately what it boils down to for the small ISP is that we
can't affect the elephants, we very likely can't get switchover forced,
and the one bit of hope that we do have to make it through this is
that freeware proxy code does exist, we can deploy it right now and
so when the time does come that the marketing people are trying to scare
customers to sign up with them based on "shortage of IPv4" that if
we have the proxy infrastructure in place, we can still service our
customers and keep them connected.

Ted