[rpd] Statistics on IPV4 allocation in Africa as of 2016

[Andrew Alston]

Ojikah,

We also need to start being a little more honest with people about what is involved in getting to V6.  For far too long I have heard V6 touted as some utopia, and I am as guilty as everyone else of this, saying that rolling it out isn’t a problem etc.

The reality is, people need to know what they are going into, they need to understand the challenges, the pitfalls, and the advantages.  If you give them an unrealistic picture of what is involved, the moment they hit a challenge they weren’t expecting, they will shy away and convincing them to try again won’t happen.

Until we openly acknowledge that rolling out V6 on a wide scale is a tough exercise, while at the same time being a necessity, we will continue to struggle with adoption.  We need to acknowledge both the benefits and the problems, so that the problems can be rectified.  We need to start pushing back on vendors who are delivering sub-standard v6 compliance and we can’t do that if we don’t talk about the issues.

And talking about v4 fallback is important – because that alone can cause some… interesting challenges.

Let me give you an example – I had a situation last week where I was struggling to figure out, why the v6 traffic levels were so low.  I looked and I looked, and everything *seemed* to be ok – so eventually, I turned off IPv4 ENTIRELY on my test machine.  Suddenly I discovered that all was not so well… what had been happening was that the system was using happy eyeballs and spotting breakage and instantly doing IPv4 fallback.

Once I disabled v4 entirely, I could clearly see the issue, and I logged tickets with the relevant content provider to get these issues fixed.  The initial reaction from that content provider was interesting – they disabled my ability to get quad-a records rather than fix the problem.  At that point thanks to a very kind individual who contacted me after I put some posts on certain lists, and a further escalation, they actually resolved the issue and I’m back to getting quad-a records and v6 traffic.

Simply put, this is not an easy path we are on, it’s a path that has to be taken and we have no choice but to go down it, but let us start talking openly about just how difficult that path can be, so that we’re prepared to actually face the challenges.  Let us not start saying that people should simply “not concentrate on v4”, because that is not realistic.  In all we do, we have to be realistic and continue to put the customers first – and so as we move to v6, we have to keep THAT in mind as well.

Andrew


From: Ojikah Celestine [mailto:celestineojikah at yahoo.com]
Sent: 22 August 2016 12:55
To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>; Willy MANGA <mangawilly at gmail.com>; rpd at afrinic.net
Subject: Re: [rpd] Statistics on IPV4 allocation in Africa as of 2016

Andrew,
This is precisely the reason why we need to adopt measures that will encourage operators to adopt v6,
necessity as they say is the mother of invention, people will learn as they go along but must first begin.
If we give the impression that we can always fall back on v4 because of some of the reasons you postulated, people are never gonna find a way to get to that point in v6 adoption that we all wish for, we must push for v6 adoption, make our mistakes,learn from them and get to eldorado.

On Monday, August 22, 2016 2:38 AM, Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com<mailto:Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>> wrote:

Willy,

Again, I agree, though I also think that providing a plan needs to have more than that just a plan, there needs to actually be action on this plan as well (even with it being a difficult thing to do).

It concerns me that we are at the point where we are, yet right now, for all the talk, I see very little actual deployment of v6 beyond core networks.

There are a few operators I have seen that have been doing some good work out there but its few and far between, many are talking about plans, but sadly, I'm not seeing much beyond plans and talk.

A PLAN is meaningless if that is all it remains.

Andrew



-----Original Message-----
From: Willy MANGA [mailto:mangawilly at gmail.com<mailto:mangawilly at gmail.com>]
Sent: 22 August 2016 11:59
To: Andrew Alston <Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com<mailto:Andrew.Alston at liquidtelecom.com>>; Ojikah Celestine <celestineojikah at yahoo.com<mailto:celestineojikah at yahoo.com>>; rpd at afrinic.net<mailto:rpd at afrinic.net>
Subject: Re: [rpd] Statistics on IPV4 allocation in Africa as of 2016

Hello Andrew,

Le 22/08/2016 à 09:25, Andrew Alston a écrit :
>  [...] So what I am saying is, you can have no less focus on
> v4 than before, it's still critical, it's still necessary, it cannot
> be avoided.  Let's get that out of our heads once and for all and
> accept that fact.  Yes, we want v6, yes, we need v6, and without v6
> going forward we are going to be screwed, but it does not diminish the
> need for v4 in the slightest at this point in time.
>

I agree with you but I will be much in favor with those who start to deploy v6 like than those who whant v4 without providing any CONCRETE v6 plan.


--
Willy Manga
freenode: ongolaBoy
Ubuntu Cameroonian Loco Team
https://launchpad.net/~manga-willy

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