[arin-ppml] Policy Proposal 2008-6:Emergency TransferPolicyforIPv4 Addresses - Last Call

[Ron Cleven]

michael.dillon at bt.com wrote:

>>Why not discuss how to avoid it and how to ensure the 
>>transition will be as smooth as possible?  
> 
> 
> Because that is largely a technical discussion which is
> best held in other, more technical forums such as NANOG
> and MAAWG, and others.
> 

But everyone on this list continues to discuss related issues forever 
while ignoring the central issues.  However, I get it, it's not your 
job, it's not ARIN's job, it's not my job, mon ...


> 
>>Would it not be 
>>better if large ISP's were busy making the transition EARLY?  
> 

I don't mean early before it worked.  My premise was that all the IPV6 
champions would get together and work out a realistic timeframe and 
goals.  I mean early as in as soon as that timeframe is reached.


> 
> No. It is better if the transition happens when most people
> are ready, i.e. the vendors have fixed the critical bugs, 
> and the operators have successfully completed their internal
> tests and trials.
> 
> Personally, I would like to see some effort made to coordinate
> a whole suite of IPv6 Internet service offerings with the 
> Olympics in 2012. China did something like that this year,
> and the Chinese are demonstrably much further ahead with
> IPv6 than the west is. Of course, we have to coordinate a 
> lot more organizations, i.e. cat herding, so that takes more
> time, but the 2012 Olympics is at about the right time, and
> it focuses global attention in a positive way. Even if IANA
> runs out of free IPv4 addresses in 2010 and then ARIN or
> RIPE run out in 2011, most ISPs will have enough IPv4 addresses
> free to support growth for another year or so. Or, they could
> launch IPv6 in some limited way to recover IPv4 addresses to
> support growth in other services.
> 

The good news is that the Chinese will be prepared to launch all-out 
IPV6 attacks just like they do IPV4 attacks.  How nice for them.


> 
>>Do people have something against actually planning the 
>>transition? 
> 
> 
> I suspect that the best way to plan a transition is to gather
> all interested parties in a single forum dedicated to it.
> If you know of someone who could host an ipv6-2012 mailing
> list, that would be a good start.
> 

The answer is always to have another meeting.


> 
>>>Also, it is worth noting that it is not ARIN's responsibility
>>>to transition the Internet to IPv6. That responsibility lies
>>>collectively on the ISPs who make up the Internet, many of
>>>whom are not in the ARIN region.
>>
>>So, I guess it is ok for them to continue with their policies that 
>>discourage, rather than encourage, the transition to IPV6?  
>>If it's good 
>>for GM, it's good for the country.  Who was GM again?
> 
> 
> If you can identify a specific area where ARIN policy actually does
> discourage IPv6 transition, then I'm sure that everyone would be
> receptive to a policy which fixes that. I'm under the impression that
> we dealt with most such issues a year or two ago.
> 

You might want to re-read my first post.  That was the entire thrust of 
it.  ARIN discourages IPV6 transition by charging IPV4 renewal rates 
that favor large ISP's.  The renewal rates should be a flat per-ip rate. 
  Give the windfall to charity.


> 
>>I've actually made some of those calls, and most of the manufacturers 
>>are quite confident they'll be ready when IPV6 rolls out.  
>>Unless there 
>>is a downturn in the economy or something and they have to lay off a 
>>bunch of programmers.  But that is unlikely, so, not to 
>>worry.  Be happy.
> 
> 
> I know of someone in a very large broadband ISP who made such a call
> to their supplier of DSL access boxes. The supplier said something
> like, "Since our boxes are based on Linux, we are ready to do a trial
> whenever you are." Said ISP has now gathered 100 volunteers from their
> technical organization and will begin trialing IPv6 broadband access in
> February. The name of the ISP and the supplier are irrelevant, since
> close to 100% of DSL and cable access boxes are based on embedding
> either
> Linux or BSD into the device. Both Linux and BSD have had IPv6 support
> for something like 10 years now. That includes stuff like IPv6
> firewalling
> and IPv6 load balancing. Just because commercial vendors don't have it
> in their official product catalog today, does not mean there is a
> serious
> problem. This is a minor issue.
> 
> A much bigger issue is backbone router vendors who fully support IPv6 
> in their routers, except that they process switch everything, i.e. use
> the slowest path through the device for IPv6.
> 
> 
>>What would prevent Comcast, Earthlink, MSN, and AOL (just to 
>>pick a few) 
>>from doing a large-scale roll-out of IPV6 in 1 month?
> 
> 
> Management decision making. I believe that Comcast has already rolled
> out IPv6, but making something technically possible, and getting 
> management support to sell this to customers as a standard service,
> are two very different things. The whole NAT-PT, dns proxy, NAT64 
> issue does contribute to this problem because from a management 
> viewpoint it looks like IPv6 is not fully-baked yet. However, this
> is mostly an engineering and scaling issue that some ISPs could work
> through in the absence of standards.
> 

I am NOT (I thought this was obvious) referring to issues that involve 
the short-sidedness of management.  I am referring to legitimate 
technical and business issues.  Things like:

Costs, timeframe to roll out, and availability of routers and router 
software.
Compatibility with the rest of the world's infrastructure.  (Do the 
customer's games stop working?  Do the customer's routers stop working? 
  Do the customer's VOIP devices stop working?  Do the old versions of 
Windoze stop working? etc. etc.)
How many customers would they lose if they force them to convert?


> 
>>What would make the answer to the previous question "Nothing."?
> 
> 
> You will never get rid of the management decision making problem in
> your lifetime. Fact is that most managers nowadays, are people who
> have MBA training but do not have experience working at the coalface.
> They tend to be risk-averse, always trying to delay things, spread 
> risk amongst as many people as possible, and wait until somebody 
> else pioneers the path.
> 
> --Michael Dillon
> 
> P.S. the above are purely my personal opinions.
>