Subject: "Doing It Right" (was Re: [RRG] Consensus? IPv4 scaling problem ...)

From: David Conrad <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 10:22:59 -0700

On May 26, 2008, at 8:25 PM, Ross Callon wrote:
>> If you believe this, then the issue is real and is strategic, not
>> tactical. We have the opportunity to Do It Right, and we should.
>>
> I believe that we have the opportunity to "Do It Right", and we  
> should.

What are are the base assumptions about how to "Do It Right"?

Some might argue that if time isn't a consideration, the right way to  
"Do It Right" is to throw out IPv6 as an abject failure and start  
anew.  Others might say that it is infeasible to deploy "IPngng" and  
instead we need to figure out how to make what we have work.  And then  
you get into questions of "what we have".  What we _really_ have is  
IPv4.  What we (arguably) sort of have, perhaps as a potential, is  
"IPv6".  But if you go this route, it is unlikely you'll get everyone  
agreeing that the result is "right".

I've always made the assumption that the biggest enemy here is inertia  
and that if we want to see something deployed in a non-infinite  
timeframe, we have to leverage as much of the existing infrastructure  
as possible while minimizing the number of devices that need to be  
touched.  Almost by definition, this won't be "right" for some value  
of that variable.

The question is, what's the consensus on the requirements to "Do It  
Right"?

Regards,
-drc

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From: "Fleischman, Eric" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 14:24:48 -0700

From: David Conrad [mailto:[email-masked]] 
>Some might argue that if time isn't a consideration, the right 
>way to "Do It Right" is to throw out IPv6 as an abject failure 
>and start anew.  

I must be missing something: why are we concluding that IPv6 is an
abject failure? 

If the reason is because of the scarcity of IPv6 deployment by us end
users, then I would state that this is EXACTLY what I personally
expected would happen back in 1994 (please see
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1687.txt) and that this does not necessarily
reflect IPv6's technical merits.

---

From: David Conrad <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 14:36:43 -0700

Eric,

> I must be missing something: why are we concluding that IPv6 is an

Note that I am not asserting this is a conclusion, rather that the  
argument has been (frequently) made that IPv6 only solves the amount  
of address space problem (poorly) and doesn't address routing  
scalability, the need to renumber should you change providers, or  
multi-homing.  Further, as evidenced by the lack of any significant  
deployment after a dozen years, it can be argued that IPv6 has been a  
clear market failure.

Regards,
-drc

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 09:52:49 +1200

On 2008-05-28 09:36, David Conrad wrote:
...
> Further, as evidenced by the lack of any significant deployment after a
> dozen years, it can be argued that IPv6 has been a clear market failure.

I'd argue that the market test hasn't started yet, and won't until
the RIRs actually run out of IPv4 prefixes. Obviously, that date was
deferred by 10 or 15 years as a result of NAT, compared to what
many expected in the IPng days.

But is this really an RRG issue?

   Brian

---

From: David Conrad <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 15:04:54 -0700

> But is this really an RRG issue?

No it's not.  The question I was trying to ask was what are the base  
assumption as to what is feasible and what isn't if we going to "Do It  
Right" as Ross suggests we do.

Regards,
-drc

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From: Peter Sherbin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 11:17:31 -0700 (PDT)

> Further, as evidenced by the lack of any significant  
> deployment after a dozen years, it can be argued that IPv6
> has been a clear market failure.

It depends. E.g. I have heard many times from not one ISP technology strategists in NA: "we have enough v4 addresses, why bother with v6". This argument may no longer apply in a few years.

In terms of the scalable architecture what seems to hinder development is the rigidity embedded in 32- and 128-bit "address". IMO until the link between a name and a locator is broken entirely that seems to remain a swamp point.

E.g. a new name space is offered as a universal standard to use by all (SDO, governments, communities, markets, etc). Does anyone see a value in having it? Should it apply to networkable devices only? Is it beyond the scope of RRG?

Thanks,

Peter

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From: Randall Atkinson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 28 May 2008 16:23:16 -0700

On May 27, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Randall Atkinson wrote:
> Historical archeology indicates that the current issues with multi-
> homing
> and mobility (and the need for some built-in TE capability) were all
> known in July 1997 [e.g. IEN-1] -- before IPv4 was deployed.

I was typing too fast I guess...      s/1997/1977/

Google for ien001.pdf and you'll find the document.

Ran

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From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 14:16:16 +1200

> Google for ien001.pdf and you'll find the document.

Pouzin's catenet paper from 1974 clearly shows hosts
multihomed to two different networks. He even had virtualized
multihomed hosts in there. That paper is hard to find without
going to a copyright library.

    Brian