[rpd] Migrating quickly to IPv6

[Owen DeLong]

> On Jun 7, 2018, at 13:51 , sm+afrinic at elandsys.com wrote:
> 
> Hi Lee,
> At 04:36 AM 07-06-2018, Lee Howard wrote:
>> The fundamental problems with these points:
>> 1. Nobody has ever said that IPv4 will be irrelevant before some debatable level of penetration. That's attacking a straw man.
>> 2. It ignores local realities. For many networks, YY countries doesn't matter, only the sites (or networks or hosts etc.) their users hit. If none of your users accesses smaller web sites in remote countries, then you probably are willing to take the risk that someone might eventually.
> 
> I'll comment about the two points above instead of the presentation [1].
> 
> There was/is a perception that IPv4 will be irrelevant once IPv6 is deployed [2].

I think this depends largely on your definition of relevance…

For example, IPv4 is largely irrelevant to Facebook today, except at their edges where they provide a certain amount of translation services to cope with the external reality that they are still stuck with a large enough fraction of their user population that has failed to achieve functional IPv6 that they can’t simply abandon them.

Now, that fraction of their user population is currently monotonically shrinking and eventually will reach a point where they will no longer choose to maintain those translation services. At that point, I believe they will truly consider IPv4 irrelevant.

This is not based on any internal or proprietary knowledge of FB (I have none) but on their own public statements.

If you’re running an enterprise network and you’re 10 years away from retiring your printers that can’t speak IPv6, then IPv4 may stay relevant for you for a much longer period of time than for many others.

If you’re running an internet backbone, then when your peers stop announcing IPv4 to you, likely you will consider IPv4 mostly if not completely irrelevant to your network.

Perspective is everything when talking about the point where IPv4 becomes irrelevant.

Windows 95 is irrelevant to the vast majority of people reading this.

However, there are a number of microscope operators where it remains part of their daily lives.

Irrelevance of obsolete technology depends greatly on one’s own perspective.

Owen

> 
> The second point is about economic incentives.
> 
> Regards,
> S. Moonesamy
> 
> 1. I am okay with the presentation.
> 2. I am not sure whether the level of IPv6 penetration was/is emphasized.  
> 
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