IPv6 and the Business-Case Skeptics

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."

Comments

You want a business case?

[dmayle]

• It's an opportunity for press, "We're the first baz widget company to offer our services over IPv6".
• Do something kitschy and you've got potential for viral advertising, "Got IPv6? Come see our new IPv6 only thingamabob, look it's funny, share the link with your friends".
• You can garner the attention of early adopters, "You're at the forefront of technology, and so are we. That's why you should do business with Foobar Widgets."

There are plenty of business cases for IPv6, you just have to ask business experts, not technology experts...

Re:You want a business case?

[Anonymous Coward]

• Do something kitschy and you've got potential for viral advertising, "Got IPv6? Come see our new IPv6 only thingamabob, look it's funny, share the link with your friends".

Sounds like a great idea. Let's make a turtle dance!

Re:You want a business case?

[Kjella]

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.

Re:You want a business case?

[mea37]

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?

• Being able to say I'm the first to have it? Well, that might be worth soemthing for one company in any given industry, if that company's customers care about IPv6 for some reason.
• Unless whatever kitschy thing I might do can only be done with IPv6, I can do it cheaper without the IPv6 conversion and get the same buzz; so to make this a business case you need a specific "something kitschy".
• Attention of early adopters might be of value in some markets, but without some detailed projections I'd be hard pressed to invest in an entire network overhaul for marketing buzz.

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.

Re:You want a business case?

[An anonymous Frank]

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:You want a business case?

[ShieldW0lf]

If you're one of the people who has enough static IP addresses to serve your needs, you're better off with IPv4, because that will make sure you're among the few who do. Increasing supply doesn't serve those who already have enough, which would be those interviewed.

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.

Re:You want a business case?

[assantisz]

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 keep many big businesses from deploying IPv6: multi-homing. The technology to have more than one upstream provider for IPv6 connectivity is still in flux.

Re:You want a business case?

[Abcd1234]

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".

Re:You want a business case?

[Cato]

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...

There is no business case *in the US*

[johannesg]

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*

[sakdoctor]

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.

Re:There is no business case *in the US*

[Chris Mattern]

My toaster got told it'll go through the NAT router like everybody else and like it.

Re:There is no business case *in the US*

[againjj]

Did you read the toaster's man page first?

Here's mine:

[Just Some Guy]

"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:

[sunking2]

Boss says, 'You want to be paid to do that when you haven't even recovered the email for me that I deleted last week? You aren't paid to play. Dance monkey boy, dance. And don't forget your pager when you leave tonight.'

Re:Here's mine:

[Tony Hoyle]

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.

IPv6 will happen when China demands it

[Animats]

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

[Cajal]

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.

Re:IPv6 will happen when China demands it

[dunnius]

Then perhaps it might be prudent to instead use IPv8 so that we won't have to change the system again for a really long time.

Only IPv6? We could have had a IP V8. :-D

Not exactly true

[Cajal]

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

[Paralizer]

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.

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.

Re:Not exactly true

[Cajal]

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 last month, NTT presented some ballpack numbers 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: "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. 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.

Re:Not exactly true

[egamma]

My company solves that problem on a frequent basis. It's not that hard--it's called a "reverse-NAT". you simply NAT the other guy's IP addresses to 172.16.0.0 or something and they do the same. Neither side knows that they are being NATed, and they don't care--all they know is that 172.16 is the "other" network.

Re:Not exactly true

[springbox]

What about putting NAT behind NAT?

Microsoft and IPv6

[BhaKi]

Actually, Microsoft is the last company to add IPv6 support to its OSs. By the time of arrival of WinXP, most other OSs including Linux, Solaris and BSDs had it atleast for 2 years. And WinXP offered it as an optional protocol that had to be installed manually. Vista is the first version of windows to offer IPv6 in a default install.

Re:Excuse me, Why are they not interoperable!

[Todd Knarr]

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.

Stages of Grief

[georgewilliamherbert]

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...