[arin-ppml] The non-deployment of IPv6

[David Farmer]

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
> Owen DeLong wrote:
>>
>> On Dec 7, 2009, at 1:57 PM, David Farmer wrote:
>>
>>> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>>>
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> Today, though, Vista bombed hard, and it's too early to see what Win 7
>>>> will do - but I frankly don't see a huge reason to switch to it, and
>>>> I have both Win XP and Win 7 at home and in the office.  And seriously,
>>>> folks, does everyone here understand that Microsoft will be 
>>>> releasing security updates and patches to XP Professional until 
>>>> 4/8/2014?  That
>>>> is almost 5 years from now.  You can be sure that XP will be a 
>>>> significant number of installed seats on the Internet until then, and
>>>> as long as it is, IPv6 isn't going to be widely deployed.
>>>> As for IPv4+, or whatever alternative you dream up, unless you have MS
>>>> buy-in, then you can just forget it.  And MS is backing IPv6
>>>> Ted
>>>
>>> AMEN!!!, +1, You got it man!
>>>
>> 1. The lack of IPv6-only name resolution is not a significant barrier to
>>     IPv6 deployment. It would be a significant barrier to IPv4 removal.
>>
>> 2. If M$ is going to be releasing patches to XP until 2014, then, why 
>> would
>>     you assume those patches will never include a patch that enables
>>     DNS resolution from an IPv6 nameserver?
>>
>> In reality, this is only really an issue if you are attempting to 
>> deploy an XP
>> system in an IPv6-only environment. As long as you deploy it in an 
>> IPv4 only
>> or a dual-stack environment and provide it at least one IPv4-based 
>> resolver,
>> things will work with IPv6.
>>
> 
> I think this is wishful thinking.  It was certainly very possible to 
> dual-stack IPX and IP and for a few years people did - but most admins
> hated it - and pressured Novell to adopt IP and abandon IPX.  Novell
> of course did not want to do that as it would unlock customers from
> NetWare - with the result that admins basically gave up on NetWare
> and went to Windows NT Server.  (of course there were other reasons too)
> 
> Dual-stack is a problem in the corporate world because you have 
> increased training costs.  Admins switched internal networks to
> IP last time because the Internet pushed them to do it.  Likely
> they will want to wait until significant IPv6 is deployed on the
> Internet before switching internal networks to IPv6 this time, and
> nothing on the Internet is doing the pushing to IPv6, which is why
> I think it will be a longer time coming.
> 
> Don't forget most corps are on licensing agreements with MS that give
> them rights to run ANY PRIOR version of Windows in addition to the
> corporate one.  Regardless of whether XP is available on pre-loads
> or not, many corps. will be buying Vista systems them loading XP
> images on them for some time.
> 
> Ted

You are correct, dual-stack will only last for so long.  The conversion 
from SNA, IPX and AppleTalk were all multiple years long, I'm not sure 
SNA is completely gone on my network yet, it is going to be the same for 
IPv4.

I'm keeping my eye on v4-over-v6 solutions, virtualizing IPv4 over IPv6 
in the enterprise network, maybe even ISP networks too.  Basically 
turning IPv4 into an application over the IPv6 network much in the same 
way the VoIP has turned the voice PSTN network into an application of 
the IP network.  There should be v4-over-v6 solutions available in a 
year or so, I hope.  Which should be about right on time for me.

Put it another way, so far IPv6 has been a second class citizen of the 
Internet, tunneled, etc...  We are moving toward where in the next few 
years, I think IPv4 and IPv6 will become equal citizens on the Internet. 
  Then in 3 to 5 years, maybe even sooner, IPv4 is going to become the 
second class "legacy" protocol.

IPv4 is going to be around a long time, probably until 2040 or longer, 
hey SNA, IPX, and AppleTalk are sill around in places.  And there are 
tons of SYNC and ASYNC serial converters to connect all kind of legacy 
building and process control systems and other long-term legacy 
application to current IP Networks.  We have 20 and 30 year old building 
controllers connected that way for monitoring.  Legacy systems can last 
a long time, just adapt and assimilate them.

So some body just needs to make a NDIS stack shim that would make 
v4-over-v6 work for XP.  This isn't any harder than the few dozed VPN 
shims that already exist today for XP, so I'm confident that someone 
will do it even if MS doesn't.  It would probably make someone a nice 
little business for a few years, if MS doesn't squash them like a bug by 
coming out with there version of it a few months later.


-- 
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David Farmer               Email:farmer at umn.edu
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