[afrinic-resource-policy-discuss] Re: [resource-policy]AfriNICPolicy Proposal: IPv6 ProviderIndependent (PI)Assignment forEnd-Sites

[Mark J Elkins]

Andrew Alston wrote:
> Hi MacTim
>
>
>   
>> Yes, by all means, I'd like to hear from those African LIRs who have some
>>     
> IPv6
>   
>> deployment experience especially.
>>     
>
> We've deployed IPv6 actively and in production to at least 3 of our
> universities so far (University of Cape Town, Rhodes University and CSIR are
> all actively running and utilizing IPv6, as well as some of our more
> utilized services, including everything on mirror.ac.za, which is also the
> only ipv6 enabled in rotation Mozilla mirror at this point)
>   
Well - Posix has since deployed IPv6 on most of our core. I did post 
something on this already - and basically met a wall of silence.

I am finding that some routing devices (eg. Mikrotik) are unable to use 
IPv6 natively... which is costing me.
I recently purchased a NPE-2G for a 7600 - and hope that this will 
future-proof me for a while (to 'fix' the Mikrotik problem).

I'll be offering my Hosting clients and access customers with dedicated 
access (digital lines) IPv6 service soon - followed by service to my 
"directly accessed" (ie - they directly dial into me) dial-up customers.

I am peering and transit-ing with Native IPv6 already.

....
> True... however the people who designed IPv4 came out with the concept of
> classful routing as well... how much of that do we see today?  I think we
> need to change the mindset beyond thinking that just because something was
> designed in a particular way, does not mean necessarily that the design was
> perfect, and didn't have flaws in it.  It's well and good to design IPv6
> without P.I, but its flawed to do so without offering viable alternatives
> that are accessible *when they are needed* to the problems this creates, and
> unfortunately there ARE no viable alternatives to the multi-homing issue at
> the moment.  It may come, but its needed today, and it's not there.
>
>   
>> These ISPs can get a sub-allocation from an LIR if they wish.
>>     
>
> And handle multi-homing how?
>
>   
This needs to be answered.

My pet example - UniForum SA - who peers at JINX (there are 14 odd ISP's 
there - all very independent)  and uses two transit providers - will 
*not* be getting a sub-allocation from an LIR.


The PI debate: This either needs to be done before the next meeting - so 
it can be voted through - or there needs to be a resolution to allow the 
result of such a discussion held at the next AfriNIC to be accepted by 
the community kinda on the spot. We've delayed this long enough already.
>> Correct, policies should be based on what the community needs.  I just
>> don't see the
>> "need" here, yet.   I think that revenue implications should be kept
>> in the back of the mind during these discussions though.
>>     
>
> I strongly agree about the revenue comments!
>
> In summary, from having actively deployed IPv6 from an LIR perspective, as
> well as having worked for one of our customers prior to that and having
> received and worked on a smaller allocation, the above are just some of
> conclusions and opinions I've come to.  I *wish* there was broader
> discussion on these issues, both on these lists and elsewhere, and I really
> appeal to the AfriNIC community, please, get involved in these discussions,
> what are your opinions?  What are your problems with the IPv6 P.I?  How do
> you view the advantages?  Let's thrash this out and finally get some
> resolution on it!
>
> Just my thoughts
>   
Thinking out the top of my head...
Why do we all need to hold full routing tables? I'd expect to see a sort 
of DNS type model come up - so you look-up a route before using it... 
and then just have a very small number of cached routes in the table... 
throw away old routes as memory fills - etc.
Then again - there are only 700 odd IPv6 routes for now? (Growing - but 
slower than IPv4)

-- 
  .  .     ___. .__      Posix Systems - Sth Africa
 /| /|       / /__       mje at posix.co.za  -  Mark J Elkins, SCO ACE, Cisco CCIE
/ |/ |ARK \_/ /__ LKINS  Tel: +27 12 807 0590  Cell: +27 82 601 0496