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One Less Reason to Adopt IPv6?
alphadogg writes "For a decade, IPv6 proponents have pushed this upgrade to the Internet's main communications protocol because of its three primary benefits: a gargantuan address space, end-to-end security, and easier network administration through automatic device configuration. Now it turns out that one of these IPv6 benefits — autoconfiguration — may not be such a boon for corporate network managers. A growing number of IPv6 experts say that corporations probably will skip autoconfiguration and instead stick with DHCP, which has been updated to support IPv6."
But puppies don't have a "gargantuan address space" or end-to-end security. Trust me, puppies leak all the time.
I don't have a microwave. I do, however, have a clock that occasionally cooks shit.
Look, if we don't switch to IPv6 one of these days, then in 100 years from now an angry IT network sys admin is going to go insane with the mess we left him and invent a time machine and come back to blow us all up.
It is going to have to happen and the longer we put it off the more expensive it is going to get over time to replace all the equipment. Yes, NAT works but its like trying to keep an old system road infrastructure in place that will be more costly to maintain at a certain point than to replace.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
"Why are we waiting until it's a crisis to deal with it?"
/. fix.
Ironically, the longer you wait to deal with it, the cheaper it may be!
There are some obvious reasons why waiting longer makes it cost more, but there are quite a few subtle reasons why it's cheaper to wait. For example:
1) If your current hardware is not IPv6 capable and you buy new IPv6-capable hardware now, it may reach end-of-life before you need the IPv6 capability.
2) IPv6 routes take more memory than IPv4 routes. The longer you wait, the cheaper it will be to add this memory. (Note that we're not just talking cheap main memory, we're talking expensive CAM and custom chip memory.)
3) Research and development are constantly progressing. The longer you wait, the better researched the solution you ultimately deploy may be. (To a limit, of course. You also lose the chance to gain experience.)
On balance, I think we're progressing at a sensible pace, perhaps a bit slower than perfect. People are continuing to do test deployments to see how IPv6 will work and make sure they'll be able to implement it for real when the demand comes. But they're not wasting money replacing working hardware or increasing network instability on the real, live Internet we all depend on for our daily (hourly? half-hourly?)