[arin-ppml] IPV6, Not yet (OT)

Owen DeLong owen at delong.com
Thu Apr 14 17:38:07 EDT 2011 

I see nothing wrong with publishing the output of the marketing person.
If it turns out to be wrong, then, it creates an incentive for the company
to retrain their marketing people better.

Owen

On Apr 14, 2011, at 2:28 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> On 4/14/2011 1:58 PM, Larry Ash wrote:
>> On Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:23:39 -0700
>> Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm at ipinc.net> wrote:
>>> On 4/14/2011 12:07 PM, Owen DeLong wrote:
>>>> You are assuming goals not in evidence. I don't seek to harm the vendor.
>>>> I don't seek to help the vendor. If the result is equal amounts of
>>>> help and
>>>> harm, then, my lack of desire on either of these goals is roughly met.
>>>> 
>>>> I seek to encourage vendors to do the right thing and add IPv6
>>>> capabilities
>>>> to their products. I seek to help others be aware of which products
>>>> are and
>>>> are not worthy of their purchasing dollars based on their IPv6
>>>> capabilities.
>>>> 
>>>> As such, I think that publicly naming the vendors is much better than
>>>> not
>>>> naming them.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> Well and good but in this case since the model number of the switch
>>> that is never going to receive IPv6 support was not named, and just the
>>> vendor was named, it is actually kind of unfair.
>>> 
>> Fair enough, but this is why I originally didn't name them
>> The product I was looking at is a SM24-1000SFP-AH. I had asked about
>> that product so I don't know anything about the rest of their line.
>> However, It is listed on their website as a new product that has
>> 2 10Gig upload ports and 24 1 Gig interfaces with a bunch of sexy
>> features like port authentication, build in DNS cache, OAM,
>> ACL's, advanced QOS based on CoS or IP DSPC tags, Port Rate limits based
>> on 802.1p or IP DSCP priority tags.
>> 
>> After spending half a day looking at a 800+ page manual for the device the
>> only mention of IPV6 I found was in relation to Traffic Classes relative
>> to queuing. Hence my question to them as to was the device fully IPV6 or
>> only minimally so. It was the answer that shocked me.
>> 
> 
> The MIL-SM24T4DPA was the unit reviewed on the you tube video
> 
>> I am sure that the layer two part of the switch will pass an Ethernet frame
>> containing IPV6 payload. When a marketing person says IPV6 capable what
>> does
>> that mean?
>> 
> 
> Well, technically speaking if this switch runs it's OS out of firmware
> then it's IPv6 capable if someone just sits down and writes the firmware
> to do it.  Just like the Linksys WRT54GS version 2 is IPv6 capable
> because someone other than Cisco wrote the firmware to do it.  So who
> knows what they might do in the future with their product.
> 
>> 
>>> Unless your going to claim the YouTube video is a complete fabrication?
>>> 
>>> Obviously Transition Networks supports IPv6. It just isn't planning on
>>> supporting it in the particular product that Larry wanted to buy.
>>> Perhaps that is because they are planning on sunsetting that product a
>>> lot faster than Larry thinks, or perhaps because it is a stripped-down
>>> product that is kind of a loss-leader for them.
>>> 
>>> If your going to tar and feather a vendor in public about not supporting
>>> IPv6 then you might as well tar and feather Cisco since they sell those
>>> cheap Linksys routers many of which don't support IPv6 and never will.
>>> (unless some smarty pants comes along and loads openwrt or some such on
>>> them, har har)
>>> 
>>> I think that the problem here is that since Larry didn't list the
>>> model of the switch he was looking at, the rest of us can't go look at
>>> it and
>>> make any value judgements. I would bet that the switch he was looking
>>> at was a cheap model of Transitions. So really what he's mad at is not
>>> that the vendor doesn't support IPv6, it's that he thinks the vendor's
>>> price for IPv6 is too high.
>> 
>> I'm not mad just shocked. I was reviewing the switch based on
>> requirements and
>> to be honest haven't even asked about price. An answer of, "you need to
>> be looking
>> at X" would have been a totally acceptable answer. I am evaluating vendors
>> on the customer edge to replace my Cisco equipment with an eye of having
>> options
>> when it's time to replace my core Cisco 6509's sometime in the near future.
>> 
> 
> My guess is that Transition Networks suffers from the same problem
> that many companies do, that their marketing people are more conversant
> with the sales and dealer channels than they are about their products
> capabilities.
> 
> The Transition guy on the video is an application engineer and he
> puts his real name on the video - it is Zach Sherman - and he is
> on Linkedin.  IMHO you would have far better luck just bypassing
> Transitions marketing people, sending him a Linkedin invite, then
> once you get it forwarding over his marketing people's response to
> you so that he can go rap some knuckles.
> 
> You are correct that the marketing and sales people should have
> steered you correctly.  But unfortunately these days it is all too common for there to be a big disconnect in companies between the
> people making the stuff and the people selling the stuff.  A good
> salesman who knows and understands his product line is rare to find,
> and in some cases it's hard to find one that even understands their
> own internal order entry system.
> 
> Ted
> 
>>> The fact is that selling stripped-down models of things for low prices
>>> as an introductory model is very common practice. For example a few
>>> months ago I bought a BlueRay player from LG. It does not support
>>> Netflix. But other players from LG do support Netflix. The difference
>>> is the other players that support Netflix are about $50 more per player.
>>> So using your logic I should be getting on the blogs and bitching that
>>> LG is a bad vendor for not supporting it.
>>> 
>>> Well the fact is that if you look at the LG product blogs you WILL find
>>> people doing just that. Fortunately, you find more people telling them
>>> to STFU because that is what they get for not doing their homework.
>>> 
>>> Ted
>>> 
>>>> Owen
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> 
>>>> On Apr 14, 2011, at 3:00 PM, Ted Mittelstaedt<tedm at ipinc.net> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Well, here is a video of a Transition Networks guy
>>>>> saying at least one of their Ethernet switches is IPv6
>>>>> capable:
>>>>> 
>>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0tw_uJXv00
>>>>> 
>>>>> Now in answer to your other question as to why people
>>>>> don't name names, it is because there is a saying among marketing
>>>>> folks:
>>>>> 
>>>>> "bad news is better than NO news"
>>>>> 
>>>>> I've also heard it expressed:
>>>>> 
>>>>> "good news is good, but bad news is also good!"
>>>>> 
>>>>> Think for a moment that this list is archived. So a web robot
>>>>> will be crawling the archive sooner or later and come across
>>>>> the vendor name. That will give the vendor a boost in the
>>>>> search engines. So by publicly naming the vendor, you
>>>>> probably help them as much as you harm them.
>>>>> 
>>>>> You should also keep in mind the old adage about sales
>>>>> and marketing people:
>>>>> 
>>>>> "When do you know when a marketing or sales person is lying?"
>>>>> 
>>>>> "When their lips are moving!" ;-)
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ted
>>>>> 
>>>>> On 4/14/2011 10:13 AM, Aaron Wendel wrote:
>>>>>> I don't understand why people feel it necessary not to shame these
>>>>>> vendors in public. I would like to remove them from my list as well.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> /Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless/
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -----Original message-----
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> *From: *Larry Ash<lar at mwtcorp.net>*
>>>>>> To: *arin-ppml at arin.net*
>>>>>> Sent: *Thu, Apr 14, 2011 16:31:25 GMT+00:00*
>>>>>> Subject: *[arin-ppml] IPV6, Not yet (OT)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sorry for the distraction,
>>>>>> I send this along only to remind those of us that maintain IPV4 will
>>>>>> die shortly,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Before purchasing switching equipment for the customer edge on a
>>>>>> metro-ethernet
>>>>>> deployment I questioned the manufacturer about IPV6 and here was the
>>>>>> reply.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> -----------------------------------------------
>>>>>> The information I received from the Product Management team is that
>>>>>> IPV6 is
>>>>>> not on the road map for this product at this time. If you need any
>>>>>> other
>>>>>> assistance please contact us.
>>>>>> ---------------------------------
>>>>>> This is a fairly new product that has a lot of sexy features many of
>>>>>> which
>>>>>> rely on layer3 yet the manufacturer is not even planning IPV6. I did
>>>>>> inform
>>>>>> them that I am removing them from any consideration for any of their
>>>>>> products.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The word is still not getting to management in a meaningful way.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Larry Ash
>>>>>> Network Administrator
>>>>>> Mountain West Telephone
>>>>>> 123 W 1st St.
>>>>>> Casper, WY 82601
>>>>>> Office 307 233-8387
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> PPML
>>>>>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
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>>>>>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
>>>>>> http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
>>>>>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> PPML
>>>>>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
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>>>>>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
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>>>>>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> PPML
>>>>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
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>>>>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
>>>>> http://lists.arin.net/mailman/listinfo/arin-ppml
>>>>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
>>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> PPML
>>> You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to
>>> the ARIN Public Policy Mailing List (ARIN-PPML at arin.net).
>>> Unsubscribe or manage your mailing list subscription at:
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>>> Please contact info at arin.net if you experience any issues.
>> 
>> Larry Ash
>> Network Administrator
>> Mountain West Telephone
>> 123 W 1st St.
>> Casper, WY 82601
>> Office 307 233-8387

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