[arin-ppml] ARIN's Authority - One view (was: Re: LRSA concerns)

[William Herrin]

On Mon, Aug 25, 2008 at 4:25 PM, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu> wrote:
> If you want to understand what I am trying to tell you, stop thinking
> like a techie and start thinking like a policy person.

Milton,

I'd encourage the opposite. DO think like a techie down in the
trenches faced with the immediate problem that you've run out of IPv4
addresses and it's no longer possible to get more from ARIN. What do
you do? The answer is not hard to find.

You'll do more NAT. You'll identify client machines that don't
absolutely need a globally routeable address (like your cell phone or
grandma's dialup) and you'll move them behind NAT firewalls. Then
you'll retask the recovered addresses for the purpose you need. And if
you don't have enough addresses to retask, you'll contract with
someone who does.

You'll do more NAT because there's really nothing else you'll be able
to do. What you won't do, and again I'm thinking from a techie's
perspective on depletion day, is seriously consider solving the
problem with IPv6. At a policy level, IPv6 is a systemic replacement
for IPv4 but at a technical level IPv6 addresses are not functional as
a substitute for IPv4 addresses on the IPv4 Internet. As a techie,
your sole concern is: what works? What solves my immediate problem?
IPv6 does not.

The techie in the data center on depletion day has the power to
institute more NAT. He does not have the power to move everyone else
to IPv6 so that he can proceed without IPv4.

However that techie solves his problem, you can be sure the solution
will be within his individual power to implement.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com bill at herrin.us
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