[arin-ppml] Encouraging IPv6 Transition (was: Clarify /29 assignment identification requirement)

[Owen DeLong]

On May 12, 2012, at 7:29 PM, Izaac wrote:

> On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 01:31:29PM -0400, William Herrin wrote:
>> As I recall there were three main reasons why not:
>> 
>> 1. Although we insist folks need to deploy IPv6, we couldn't possibly
>> assign them addresses until they publicly state the truth of our
>> belief by making a paid application.
> 
> When I say things like "encourage," the waiving or reduction of fees
> in certain circumstances seems to apply.  Unless of course one of the
> armchair economists like to argue the efficacy of subsidy and efficacy
> to affect the behavior of applicants?
> 

There are already fee reductions in place for IPv6 allocations and have been
for years.

>> 2. The preemptive block might possibly not be the right size, leading
>> to a request for a second block and an entire extra route in the IPv6
>> BGP table. Never mind that it turns out somewhere between many and
>> most of the initial IPv6 allocations have ended up being the wrong
>> size anyway. As if the possibility that wouldn't happen had every been
>> more than wishful thinking.
> 
> In my opinion, if you can't fit your world into a /56 or /48, you're
> doing something very, very wrong.  But hey, I get that stuff happens.
> 

If you're a single end-site, then a /48 should be fine in almost every case,
if not every case.

If you are an end-user with a campus or multiple campuses that have multiple
end-sites each, then you need a /48 for each end-site to do things properly.
(Note, end-sites may actually be defined by natural network aggregation points
in topology and not actual physical  buildings, but, a /48 per building or per
tenant in a multi-tenant building serves as a pretty good rule of thumb in either case.)

However, if you are giving out /48s to the end-sites you serve as an ISP and
some of your customers may have multiple end-sites, then you may not even
fit in a /32. For example, Hurricane Electric has definitely outgrown its /32 and
has (thankfully) received a /24 for growing our network which will serve us
quite nicely for many years to come.

>> 3. Per the IETF, all IPv6 end users are supposed to get IPs from their
>> ISP, even though the technical basis for that plan has been thoroughly
>> discredited for more or less every situation in which a registrant
>> qualifies to hold ARIN IPv4 addresses.

I think this was stated mostly tongue in cheek.


> 
> So, in summary, all three arguments are weaker than a quadriplegic
> poodle.  Gotcha.  Thanks.

No, not really. You also left out argument 4 which is that it does not make
sense to assign unrequested addresses because people that qualify for and
need IPv4 addresses from ARIN may already have sufficient IPv6 addresses
from some other source. While they could qualify for IPv6 addresses from ARIN,
if they have absolutely no need for them and have already deployed their
IPv6 using addresses from another source, what possible good comes from
giving them ARIN IPv6 addresses that they don't need or want?

Owen