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IPv6 and the Business-Case Skeptics
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Sep 16, 2008 02:16 PM
from the there-is-none-get-over-it dept.
from the there-is-none-get-over-it dept.
Julie188 writes "Experts keep screaming that the IPv4 sky is falling. Three such experts were recently asked point-blank to state an irrefutable business case for moving to IPv6 now, and their answer was more plausible than the old refrain (the lack of addresses and a yet-to-be-seen killer IPv6 app). They said that there isn't a business case. No company that is satisfied with all of its Internet services will need to move, even in the next few years. They also pointed out that Microsoft is a unique position in the industry both causing and hindering IPv6 adoption — causing through its IPv6 support in its OSes, and hindering by not extending IPv6 support into very many of its apps."
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You want a business case? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of business cases for IPv6, you just have to ask business experts, not technology experts...
Re:You want a business case? (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like a great idea. Let's make a turtle dance!
Parent
Re:You want a business case? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, because cutting yourself out of 99%+ of the market by going IPv6 only is a smart business decision. Face it, if you want an online service you're on IPv4 and the service won't really be any different on IPv6. Between HTTPS, VPN and SSL noone is excited about IPSec because it's already solved if less elegantly, nor has the "online home" happened. Neither my fridge, dishwasher, washing machine or toaster is online even in the local LAN so I got no use for my own /64. IPv6 is about as sexy as computers in a new shade of beige.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you really can find something that people will advertise to one another because it's IPv6, it could make sense. 20% of ipv6 users is much better than 0.000001% of all internet users, even if only 1% of all internet users are ipv6 users.
I can attest that if you build it, they will not come. I built a free site to help people buy & sell either locally (location based search) or nationally (http://frimp.net) about 4-5 years ago. It doesn't do auctions, but it's free (as opposed to eBay), and easy to
Re:You want a business case? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you like things the way they are, where the restricted number of static IPs makes it impossible for the great unwashed to have a voice and the web is coming to resemble a television set more each day, well, you're not going to be supportive of IPv6. Plenty for everyone means no leverage, which means no profit. Which means IPv6 isn't going to get business support from the IT sector any time soon.
Parent
Re:You want a business case? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to host a server, call a hosting company. Your home internet connection is not sold for hosting servers.
That's a BS argument. What if I want to stream my music collection, that's stored on my media server, to work? Or access MythWeb so I can alter my recording schedule during the day? Or simply SSH to my home machine so I can retrieve something I was working on? None of these cases are served by using a hosting company, yet all qualify as "[hosting] a server".
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I am sorry but that explanation is lame. Is there any operating system out there that does not support dual TCP/IP stacks? Is there any mainstream application out there that does not support IPv6 in addition to IPv4? There you have it. Just configure your IPv4 system to be also capable of IPv6 and offer your services in both ways. You just need an upstream provider that provides you with IPv6 connectivity (a little more difficult but not a show stopper).
AFAIK there is only one real problem left that will ke
Re:You want a business case? (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe you could build a business case around one or more of those, but what you've really got there are just marketing angles.
The question is, how is this going to make/save me money? More specifically, how will it make/save me more money than investing the input capital in some other way?
I'm not saying the business case does or doesn't exist, but until you've tied it to dollars and cents (or better yet NPV), you haven't made what most people would take as a compelling business case.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Actually, that's Foobar Widgetz, and they've got really good items on their download page at:
0:0:0:0:0:0:127.0.0.1
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You might also want to ask "technology architects" rather than "technology experts."
Some people are very good at learning the details of existing technologies, and figuring out how to mangle them to solve tomorrow's problems. Other people take a broader view and wonder how to solve next year's problems by creating new technologies. Both have their place, and there must equivalents on the "business" side of a business - people who try to foresee major economic events, the birth of whole new markets, etc. Th
Re:You want a business case? (Score:5, Insightful)
The real business case is very simple:
* IPv4 addresses will run out in around 2010 to 2011
* Businesses that need new addresses (mostly ISPs and telecom operators) will need to go IPv6 just to keep operating in longer term (even if there are short term workarounds, they don't work forever - this is why Comcast already has IPv6 live in its core network)
* Planning ahead will be important to avoid an interruption in business (can't get new IPv4 addreses so can't activate customers)
* Around 2009/2010, the stock market will start to assess public companies as to whether they have an IPv6 transition plan, and the press will start to hype "IPv4 is running out - another Y2K is on the way" - companies that don't have an IPv6 transition plan will find their ratings and stock prices fall
If you want to continue expanding as a telco/ISP, and to have a healthy stock price (after the current dip), you will need a serious plan to move to IPv6. It's that simple.
This article was generally quite pro IPv6, the summary was atrociously slanted against v6. But that's Slashdot for you...
Parent
There is no business case *in the US* (Score:5, Insightful)
Countries like China and India, that have lots of people that might one day want to connect, but not a lot of existing infrastructure yet, and certainly not a lot of IP4 addresses, will have a far better motivation than countries that have an abundance of unused addresses.
The killer app will come, alright - just not from the US.
Re:There is no business case *in the US* (Score:4, Funny)
India and China have 38 percent of the world's population who might want to connect one day.
I have a house full of linux running household appliances that want to connect today. In fact my toaster said it would kill me if it didn't get it's own internet facing IP address by the end of the year.
Parent
Re:There is no business case *in the US* (Score:5, Funny)
My toaster got told it'll go through the NAT router like everybody else and like it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Mine grew an arm and stabbed me in the face.
Re:There is no business case *in the US* (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Here's mine: (Score:5, Interesting)
"Boss, I can get an IPv6 tunnel for free so that we can start experimenting and testing. We work with the Department of Defense, and they say that this stuff is important, so with your permission I'd like to spend $0 to start playing with it."
And that's how we came to be on IPv6.
Re:Here's mine: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It sounds like you work for an awful boss. Have you considered taking night classes to help land a job that rewards intelligence?
Re:Here's mine: (Score:4, Funny)
That will work only if your boss is an idiot and doesn't realize that you cost money. Personally I'd rather ask for a couple of days off on full pay.. you're effectively asking for the same thing but it's more fun.
Parent
IPv6 will happen when China demands it (Score:5, Insightful)
IPv6 will happen when China demands it. China's growing need for IP address space will drive the issue. China needs at least a billion IP addresses. Especially since the Chinese government would like a system where each device has a permanent IP address.
Re:IPv6 will happen when China demands it (Score:5, Informative)
China has already demanded it. China's new national network, CERNET2, runs IPv6 - http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/27/content_403512.htm [chinadaily.com.cn].
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Ultimately China will need a lot more than a billion IP addresses. At the moment I have internet connections for home computer, work computer, mobile phone and laptop
Re:IPv6 will happen when China demands it (Score:5, Funny)
Only IPv6? We could have had a IP V8. :-D
Parent
Not exactly true (Score:4, Informative)
There's no business case if you don't care about growing your network. If you do, you need to care about IPv6, becuase in a few years, it's going to become increasingly difficult to get new public IPv4 addresses.
Actually, Microsoft supports IPv6 in several of its core products. IE, Outlook 2007, Windows Mail/Live Mail and Exchange 2007 support IPv6, as do many of the services in Windows 2008 (IIS, DHCPv6, DNS, POP, CIFS, LDAP, Kerberos, Remote Desktop). Some of these also have IPv6 support on Windows XP (IE, IIS, Remote Desktop, CIFS).
Re:Not exactly true (Score:5, Informative)
Many companies do not need public IP addresses, yet they have large networks. For example, imagine a company that has a location with 2,000 employees. The company does not offer web services but they do need internet access for their employees to be able to send/receive email and use business applications between sites (via VPN tunnels). In this case the company may only need a handful of IP addresses and NAT all of their private addresses through the pool of 4 or 5 public IP addresses for that location. They can easily add a new building to their location and just expand their LAN as they have an entire 10.0.0.0 A block providing millions of IP addresses. NATing between the internal LAN and the internet they can get up to ~250,000 entries (provided their hardware can support that), allowing each of their 2,000 users to be using, on average, 125 internet applications (or open connections) at once.
This situation I suspect is typical of almost all companies. Most already have enough public IP addresses to satisfy all of their internal users and lots of room to expand on their LAN side.
Parent
Re:Not exactly true (Score:5, Insightful)
NATing between the internal LAN and the internet they can get up to ~250,000 entries (provided their hardware can support that), allowing each of their 2,000 users to be using, on average, 125 internet applications (or open connections) at once.
What's going to be more expensive: A massive NAT box or an IPv6-enabled router (as many already are)?
What's going to be more expensive: Adding NAT buster support into many apps, or using IPv6 (many apps are already IPv6-aware)?
At the APNIC 26 conference [apnic.net] last month, NTT presented some ballpack numbers [apnic.net] for how many people can be comfortably put behind NAT. They're not encouraging. Basically, the common "Web 2.0"-type apps open a lot of background connections, which chews through your ephemeral port space quickly, limiting the number of people that can be NATted. Google echoed those claims loud and clear [apnic.net]: "AJAX applications break behind excessive NAT."
Also, consider that by 2012 we'll have run out of public IPv4 addresses. But only 25% of Earth's population will be online [itnews.com.au]. Do you propose to put another 3.5 billion people behind NAT? I'm pretty skeptical that NAT can handle that load.
While NAT will likely be needed in the short term to deal with IPv4 address exhaution, I'm highly skeptical of its long-term scalability.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you agree with that assumption then you can say your business class router/firewall that can handle both
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, consider that by 2012 we'll have run out of public IPv4 addresses.
That is not the hard fact it sounds like, but depends on a number of assumptions that may or may not pan out. This has been proclaimed for quite a while now, and the date keeps getting pushed back. Why? Because assumptions keep getting broken by things like NAT and CIDR. The next big thing I imagine will be the reallocation of class A addresses: why should the likes of HP get multiple class A's?
I predict that the allocation of IPv4 addresses will not have a hard stop, but rather will trail off over ti
Re:Not exactly true (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What happens when that company wants to setup a VPN to another company that also uses the 10.0.0.0 address space? Now I need a NATNAT device that invents a whole new set of addresses to let machines inside the two private networks talk to each other.
I'm not saying that everyone needs to be directly on the Internet with a public address and no firewall. But even if you are going to assign private addresses internally, there's value in having (or being able to easily obtain) a globally unique address so that
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Some companies dont' even WANT to use public IPs (Score:3, Insightful)
Even if you said "Here, have a /8 completely free, use whatever you like," they'd still want to do NAT. Why? Privacy and security. NAT automatically gives a good measure of security. You have an inbound firewall by default, simply because of how it works. You have to explicitly set up any inbound ports to be forwarded. Also this means that to get to any system that doesn't have a forwarded port, you'll have to get access to a system that does. With public IPs, there is always the possibility that the firewa
NAT is *not* a security technology. (Score:3, Informative)
Repeat it until it sinks in. In some cases it is possible to tunnel through NAT routers. And there are several attacks that do not depend on the victim having a public IP address. If you want security, use a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware technology.
Microsoft and IPv6 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Similar to climate change (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a bit like saying there is no business case for doing something about climate change. Sure, I can't tell anyone that specific bits of their infrastructure are going to get wiped out by hurricanes, or that particular segments of their markets are going to be bankrupted and / or drowned by rising sea levels, but that doesn't mean it's not a good idea.
Similarly, I can't forecast what the oil price is going to do, whether it will be higher or lower in 12 months time than it is now. I don't know when we will hit peak oil, or if we've hit it already, and I don't know the exact consequences of that. But that certainly doesn't mean that looking at ways of reducing energy requirements, and alternative sources for them, isn't a good idea.
I can't say what will happen as IPv4 address scarcity hits. Will people be denied allocations outright? I doubt it. Will small blocks of addresses in random parts of the address space be auctioned to the highest bidders? Seems more likely. Will dealing with the huge routing tables caused by all those disconnected little blocks put stress on routers, causing reliability issues and more money to be spent on upgrades? Quite possibly. Will we see people rolling out multiple layers of NAT, and all sorts of ugly application-helpers? Probably. Will it be reliable? I doubt it.
Times are hard economically now, and as a result people pull their horns in and look for hard, specific reasons to justify effort and expenditure, particularly immediate, short-term reasons. But short-termism got us into the current (economic) mess in the first place. Step back, look at the big picture. Yes, it's fuzzy. That doesn't mean there aren't obvious trends, obvious problems -- and also some reasonably obvious, big-picture solutions.
We need a new Godwin's Law for Global Warming (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a bit like saying there is no business case for doing something about climate change. ...
Oh, no! Now we have a Global Warming take on IPv6 adoption!
I think it's time for a new version of Godwin's law with Global Warming / Climate Change substituted for NAZIs:
As a scientific, technological, or political discussion or grant proposal grows longer, the probability of an assertion of a tie-in to climate change approaches one.
= = =
I realize you may have had a serious point. But (like NAZI analogies) the
Stages of Grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Network architects and admins with clue are currently at the "Depression" stage (4th stage).
Why Slashdot feels that putting up a commentary authored by someone who's still in the first stage ("Denial") is useful to anyone is beyond me.
IPv4 exhaustion is coming. CIDR got us from the mid-90s until now. But it's coming now. Please stop denying, being angry, trying to bargain it away. Hopefully we'll all move past depression into acceptance (as vendors and infrastructure gets ready) before it hits. But I know a lot of smart people who would prefer to retire in the next 2 years instead of be there when it hits.
They probably won't, but would like to...
Availability of hardware (Score:3, Interesting)
So until then they won't be pushing IPv6 although it is available and even supported for the curious and brave.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Moving to IPv6 means that I can't use NAT anymore for my home network.
I don't believe that's accurate. What's supposed to happen is that your ISP gives you a /64 block and you don't need NAT, but nothing says you can't use NAT if you want to (or if your ISP doesn't play nice).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Moving to IPv6 means that I can't use NAT anymore for my home network.
You technically can, but there are few sane reasons for wanting to.
That means I need a block of IP addresses assigned to me. So does my telco/cable company have this set up and will it cost me a huge amount to get a block of IPs?
Correct, yes (they will), and no (it won't). I have a free /48 allocation from Hurricane Electric [tunnelbroker.net], giving me a home netblock of 2^80 addresses. If your ISP tries to rake you over the coals, I could probably peel off 2^64 or so of those to lend you.
port forwarding != nat (Score:3, Insightful)
You can do port forwarding without NAT.
And he's wrong, nothing's preventing you from doing NAT on IPv6, except that it's probably never been implemented since it's kinda pointless.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The cost of having (probably) Cisco write custom firmware for all their equipment, and the cost of maintaining that custom firmware. It's possible to get the routers to handle a /128 assignment, but you're fighting the equipment the whole way. And it fails to work with Windows, whose IPv6 stack assumes that IPv6 stateless autoconfig works properly and doesn't play well with routers that refuse to accept the stack's use of it's own MAC-address-based value in the lower 64 bits. Again this can be worked around
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
192.168.1.87 -vs- fe80::e1c0:5620:bc95:3c71%9
I see your unwieldly addressing and raise you a DNS.
Besides, if you want to talk Rube Goldberg, check out IPv4's variable-length headers and the processing required to sort them out at line speed.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Lucky you. There's not a system on my home network that can be reliably accessed through anything but the IP address. I've experienced the same reliability on every network I've ever touched.
Now internet-wide DNS is pretty damn solid, but that tends to happen when there are about seven levels of fall-back. LANs tend not to be nearly that robust.
Having said that, IPv6 addresses are stupidly over-complicated. Adding two groups onto IPv4 would probably have been more than enough for quite a number of years
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you ever actually looked at what's required to parse an IPv4 header vs. an IPv6 header? There are plenty of good reasons that IPv6 decided the IPv4 structure was not a good plan.
Beside that, there's no practical way to add address length to IPv4 headers that wouldn't break old equipment. Moreover the kind of breakage caused would be harder to detect and repair -- old equipment would see the IPv4 header, not know about the new extensions, and likely do the wrong thing (like forward traffic to the addres
Re:Excuse me, Why are they not interoperable! (Score:4, Informative)
Except that the IPv6 design is backwards-compatible. Any IPv4 address has, per the IPv6 spec, an IPv6 representation, so any IPv6 machine can talk to a machine that has only IPv4 connectivity. Likewise, if your IPv6 machine also has an IPv4 address, there's a defined transformation to allow traffic to it's IPv4 address to be handled by the IPv6 stack. Most IPv6 stacks include all this functionality internally already.
And yes, IPv6 is radically different from IPv4. It's different for the same reasons a Freightliner semi tractor's radically different from a Mini Cooper: it's designed to do things the Mini's incapable of. Sure, you can redesign a semi tractor to be similar to the Mini, use the same parts as the Mini and all that, but in doing so you'd make the tractor cease to be a semi tractor and cease to be capable of doing what you wanted a semi tractor for.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IPv4-compatible addresses [wikipedia.org] are deprecated, and IPv4-mapped addresses [wikipedia.org] are basically only there so you can write an "IPv6 only" application and still transparently handle IPv4 connections. The actual system the app is running on still has to be dual stack.
IPv6-only hosts can't talk to IPv4-only hosts without help [wikipedia.org]. As noted above, what could an IPv6-only node put in the source address of an outgoing IPv4 packet that would ensure it got to see any responses?
And and that risk of looking like I'm deliberately try