[rpd] IPv6 and some cloud providers

[Owen DeLong]

> On May 31, 2020, at 09:15 , JORDI PALET MARTINEZ via RPD <rpd at afrinic.net> wrote:

> 

> I guess there are two main reasons why AWS and Azure still need to keep buying IPv4 addresses:

> 1) They need to provide dual-stack, because they can't be sure in advance if customers will be using IPv4 or IPv6. And this is customer by customer, so IP for every customer or so. Otherwise they need to provision special rules for each incoming port that every customer need and probably the cost to do so is higher than just buying IPv4 addresses. At some point they will just automate it (but then the customer needs to be able to configure each specific port, instead of the standard ones), and/or they will offer a lower price for customers that only require IPv6.


Mostly they’re faced with the problem that the majority of their customers need 22/80/443 to get to their box, so they can’t really get away with using port numbers to multiplex IPv4 addresses.

However, they are (as I understand it) charging for IPv4 addresses where as IPv6 is free. Customers choose what addressing scheme(s) they want and pay accordingly. That’s already automated.

I think that because of legacy problems inherent in their provisioning system, there’s at least one IPv4 address included in the mix for free, but beyond that, yes, IPv4 gets rapidly more expensive.


> 2) Similar to the previous one. They can't use IPv6-only (example SIIT-DC) because the need to support incoming connections to each standard port for every customer. This will make also the provisioning of the DC more expensive than just dual-stack.


Dual stack comes with its own costs as well. Over time, those costs are rising. The main reason AWS/Micr0$0ft/etc. chose to purchase vast quantities of address space early is that they saw this coming, knew that prices would rise rapidly, and did their best to stockpile to avoid having to buy later when prices got higher.


> In fact, 1 above, is already a reality. There are several cloud and VPS providers that are much cheaper if you only need IPv6!


Yep, and the number of these is growing. So far, it hasn’t entirely expanded to the major cloud providers (Goog/Aws/Azure), but I suspect the primary reason for that is legacy issues inherent in their provisioning systems, as I mentioned. All of them built an IPv4-only network and then tried to cobble IPv6 on top of it. Turns out that the hacks necessary to support IPv4-only at their scale make rational deployment of IPv6 quite a bit more difficult.

Owen


> 

> Regards,

> Jordi

> @jordipalet

> 

> 

> 

> El 31/5/20 14:25, "Willy Manga" <mangawilly at gmail.com> escribió:

> 

>    Hi Noah,

> 

>    On 31/05/2020 11:27, Noah wrote:

>> [...]

>> Amazon (AWS) and Microsoft (Azure) and others alike for instance have been

>> buying so much IPv4 space in recent years from this transfer markets.

> 

>    I cannot argue the contrary, BUT they also have a considerable amount of

>    IPv6 resources.

>    Whenever it is possible, you will see IPv6 packets along the path

>    instead of IPv4.

> 

>    Now, the challenge is most of the time ... their customers. They can use

>    IPv6 in their panel, but are they using it?

> 

>    My point is, strictly speaking of these 2 cloud providers (but you will

>    find many others like this) , they do their job regarding IPv6. They

>    have it available and ready to use.

> 

>    What if we (name any ISP) just start ourselves ?

> 

> 

>    P.S. The anniversary of world IPv6 world launch day is coming this week.

>    Lets give some love to IPv6 folks :)

> 

>    -- 

>    Willy Manga

>    @ongolaboy

>    https://ongola.blogspot.com/

> 

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