[172418] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Ars Technica on IPv4 exhaustion
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Wed Jun 18 13:45:30 2014
X-Original-To: nanog@nanog.org
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
In-Reply-To: <20140618165617.GB21878@excession.tpb.net>
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 10:40:08 -0700
To: Niels Bakker <niels=nanog@bakker.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces@nanog.org
On Jun 18, 2014, at 09:56 , Niels Bakker <niels=3Dnanog@bakker.net> =
wrote:
> * mail@martingeddes.com (Martin Geddes) [Wed 18 Jun 2014, 18:17 CEST]:
>> It may never become the defacto standard, period. Nearly 20 years to =
reach
>> 2% penetration is a strong hint that the costs outweigh the benefits.
The 2% number is also not particularly meaningful. Traffic levels as =
measured by Google are closer to 4%, but even that doesn't tell the =
whole story.
The total deployment of IPv6 is probably much closer to 15-25% globally. =
The astonishingly lower traffic figures are a result of the following =
likely factors:
1. They represent the intersection of client AND servers =
that are IPv6 enabled.
2. They are further reduced by happy eyeballs often =
preferring IPv4 even when IPv6 would work.
3. End user and enterprise adoption is lagging, even where =
IPv6 could be fully deployed in minutes without any harm.
> Never before have we run out of IPv4 address space, so this time may =
well be different, now that an actual need for change is developing.
Indeed. A time is coming when new content and services will be unable to =
be deployed on IPv4 due to lack of number resources. Once that starts to =
occur, IPv6 becomes the only viable alternative. The question at this =
point is not whether IPv6 will become the de facto standard, but how =
much pain we will inflict on the general public in that transition =
process.
If we deploy IPv6 ubiquitously before we reach that point, then the pain =
of transition can be minimized. If we fail to do so, then the transition =
will be abrupt, painful, and very disruptive.
Unfortunately, this is a classic recipe for the tragedy of the commons. =
We must all act in our mutual best interest deploying IPv6, or, we will =
all suffer together. Sadly, those who deploy IPv6 later will suffer the =
least at first and what happens in the long run remains to be seen.
Owen
