[arin-ppml] IPv6 Heretic thoughts

[Dan White]

John Santos wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Sep 2008, Dan White wrote:
>
>   
> No!  Go back to basics.  What problem are we trying to solve?
> The problem is *not* getting people to adopt IPv6.  The problem is
> running out of IPv4 addresses.  

I reject that claim. IPv4 depletion is *one* reason to move to IPv6, but 
certainly not the only one. The goal is to facilitate customers' needs. 
A service provider needs to anticipate those needs without really caring 
about how customers use their networks. I like IPv6, it has a lot of 
good things going for it, but I don't feel it's my place to advocate 
it's usage to my customers, even in the face of IPv4 depletion. IPv6 
usage is not going to be uniform. There are, and will be many, 
legitimate uses of IPv6 before IPv4 run out. I fully expect new devices, 
such as handhelds, to really drive IPv6 adoption.

>> Not exactly. In the case where a user is visiting a website, the DNS 
>> resolver will do *one* search for IPv4 and IPv6 addresses for that site 
>> name. If there are no AAAA records for the site, no harm no foul. If an 
>> admin is advertising IPv6 services for a hostname that is not 
>> connectible that's a management issue, not a protocol deficiency.
>>     
>
> The end site might have a perfectly configured IPv6 network and it's
> upstream may be perfectly configured, and so might my network and my
> upstream, but if something in between is *not* IPv6, I'll still
> encounter this problem.
>
>   

You could say the same thing about IPv4 connectivity. It's somebody's 
job to keep the internet cogs churning.

- Dan