Re: IPv6 Deployment

[John Curran <jcurran () istaff org>]

At 5:27 PM -0700 5/30/07, Fred Heutte wrote:
> This is more in the way of a leading question for those who are
> attending NANOG 40.
>
> I'll ask it the same way I did at NZNOG back in February --
> what problem is it that IPv6 is actually supposed to solve?
>
> I used to know the answer to this, but I don't now.  In 1997
> (or even years before, reading Scott Bradner's eloquent advocacy
> for it back then) it would have been: address space, security,
> extensions, QOS.  But it seems to me these have either been
> sidestepped, addressed somewhat, or the benefits have not
> overcome the costs in a clear business case sense.

Most of those features were completely gone by 1995, leaving
larger address space as the sole practical benefit and no actual
transition plan.  This wisdom of this approach is questionable at
best, and I'll admit to being part of the team that went along...

However, even with just bigger address space, there *is* a real
problem that will be solved by IPv6, and that's avoiding the even
larger chaos that results from true depletion of IPv4 space for all
ISP's who need more space for their growth.  I've already ranted
about this here and on ARIN PPML, so see the attached link for
one answer to your question.

/John

ref: http://lists.arin.net/pipermail/ppml/2007-May/007163.html