Proposed IPv6 Cutover By 2011-01-01

IO ERROR writes "An internet-draft published this month calls for an IPv6 transition plan which would require all Internet-facing servers to have IPv6 connectivity on or before January 1, 2011. 'Engineer and author John Curran proposes that migration to IPv6 happen in three stages. The first stage, which would happen between now and the end of 2008, would be a preparatory stage in which organizations would start to run IPv6 servers, though these servers would not be considered by outside parties as production servers. The second stage, which would take place in 2009 and 2010, would require organizations to offer IPv6 for Internet-facing servers, which could be used as production servers by outside parties. Finally, in the third stage, starting in 2011, IPv6 must be in use by public-facing servers.' Then IPv4 can go away."

Comments

I am not trying to troll right now but...

[techiemikey]

who is this guy and why does he control what happens with my internets?

missing one thing

[badfish99]

This is a great plan for switching over to IPv6. It's full of things that everyone MUST do. It's just missing one thing: if everyone ignores the plan and does nothing instead, how is it going to be enforced?

This is so funny, I don't even know where to begin

[zerofoo]

Does the IETF even realize the scope of this project? Ignore everything else and just look at every ISP in the world....all of them....the big ones and the mom-and-pop shops.

Now every single one of them must have routing gear (and all the associated monitoring equipment) capable of IPv6, and the ability to manage the massive address space. I know ISPs right now that can barely handle their IPv4 infrastructure that has been in place for a decade. Now you are asking them, in the space of a few years to throw out their existing infrastructure and move completely to IPv6? That's rich.....

If the ISPs don't convert (or can't quickly convert) then no one else will.

-ted

I think you're missing the point

[frovingslosh]

It's not a question if the new spec should be that large (it should, but that's not the issue). It's if we need a new spec at all. If you acknowledge that we need a new spec, IPv6 seems to be it. And it would be absurd to come up with some short sighted spec with smaller addresses just to get caught with limits again.

Also, don't fall into the all too common trap of looking at how large 2 to 128 is and thinking that ipv6 really provides that many unique addresses. You have to look at how the bits are used, the number of useable Internet addressable devices is much smaller. Perhaps even around the size you may be thinking we need. A new addressing system can provide some nice new features. Imagine the benifit of having a portable IP addres that is yours no matter what network you connect to or where in the world you move. Kind of like having a real truly portable telephone number. As all communication merges into IP address this will be both handy and important.

None of this should be taken to imply that I support the absurd cut over schedule in this thread. But there are some nice things designed in ipv6 and it will be a positive thing if the convesrion is done right, not switched over in a mad rush.

Re:Yeah, that'll happen

[mrogers]

They create specs, then people half-implement them, and nothing changes.

That's exactly the problem with the IETF today. Back in the good old days they half-implemented things and then wrote the specs.

Only the address space difference?

[Jugalator]

Why do these articles only end up being commented about IPv6 improved address space?

IPv6 offers lots of tasty features because they took the opportunity to fix a lot of quirks in the IPv4 protocol while they were at it, and that offers real world advantages.

Things like host autoconfiguration and ad hoc networking, end-to-end IPSec support in the standard, larger datagram support for efficiency in fast networks.

Re:not ready for prime time

[Doctor Memory]

Except for the N-word being used, this post is very informative Excuse me? "IPv6 needs work because Cisco routers don't handle it well"? It's just a troll, get over it. Cisco's probably wringing their hands with glee, because this will help them push their next-generation made-for-IPv6 routers. And if they don't have a next-generation router that handles IPv6 well, then Juniper will (deservedly) eat their lunch.

The rest of the points in that post were similarly bogus. NAT sucks because it breaks the end-to-end IP model (which also breaks IPSec). It also requires the network to handle connections and maintain state. IPv6 also uses multicast for ARP resolution instead of broadcast, which means your NIC doesn't have to deal with a packet every time someone else on your subnet wants to contact a machine that isn't in their cache.