Subject: RE: Re[4]: national security

From: "Michel Py" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 20:38:38 -0800

> [email-masked] wrote:
> I'm more than happy to accept any realistic projections
> that point to a change in the burn rate - if you know of
> something I've overlooked, please enlighten us....

The "savings" due to NAT might be underestimated, which in turn pushes
the v4 exhaustion even further than anticipated.

Rationale: NAT is here and here to stay. Nevertheless, allocation
policies still consider the "one host - one IP" rule valid. In reality,
this turns into the following situation that I have seen at many
customers lately:

The organization has 800 hosts, all behind NAT (they have PA space, NAT
is there for renumbering ease), and there is only a small fraction of
servers that have one-to-one NAT and therefore require a public IP per
host. In your average 800 hosts network (if such a thing exists) it
turns out that a /26 would have been enough.

Where's the catch? This organization gets a frac-DS3, and the network
administrator thinks "what the hell, I have 800 hosts and therefore I'll
request 2 class Cs anyway even if I don't need them, it does not cost
more, and who knows if I won't need them later". The organization does
get 512 addresses out of which it really uses 50, but the network
administrator likes seating on a cushion especially if it costs nothing.

IPv4 addresses _are_ a commodity; on cheap markets (home/soho) more
addresses means more money. On more expensive links (above T1) it still
means money but that money is washed out in the bottom line. When home
DS-3s are available for $79/mo, expect to pay more money if you need
more than a handful of addresses.

Pre-CIDR blocks sell on eBay, this is a gray market that I would not
recommend going into but it does happen anyway. When IPv4 addresses
become scarce, we will find out that lots of people that have stockpiled
them would be ready to let half of their block go if there is a sound
financial reason to do so.

IPv4 address will never run out. They will simply be available to
whoever has money to pay for them.

Michel.

---

From: shogunx <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2003 01:25:06 -0500 (EST)

Michel,

> administrator likes seating on a cushion especially if it costs nothing.

And in the real world i'm shelling out almost $100 US for barely half a
gig of burst transfer and two v4 addresses, from two providers.   i have 9
hosts altogether, NATed behind the two gateway machines, which route v6
address space to the remainder of the hosts.  But guess what... if i want
v4 addresses on all the hosts, i have to shell out almost as much as i am
paying for the circuits, with no throughput benefit.  At least using the
NAT/v6 combo, i can see all of my hosts and use some of their services
from part of the public internet (albeit not very much of it).

> addresses means more money.
>

And its a sad state of affairs, just like the DNS.
Its like we are saying:  "Oh yes, yes indeed, the internet is for
everyone, regardless of religion, race, creed, financial standing, or
ideology, as long as you have a major credit card.  If not, bugger off,
we dont like your type."

> On more expensive links (above T1) it still

See above.  Whereas I have a free v6 /48, as i probably would have a free
v4 allocation if i were in the game around the time i was getting my first
trs-80 from santa.

> financial reason to do so.

How does one go about routing something like that?

> whoever has money to pay for them.

No, but market pressures cited above will render v4 obsolete quicker.

Scott

> Michel.

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