On 1 Dec 2009, at 12:16, Florian Frotzler wrote:
I can tell you that being forced to implement multiple SP prefixes might be a show-stopper for a numerous of ISPs to implement 6RD, including Swisscom, this is fact. It is a huge operational burden, especially for the IT stack, and means $$$ needed to be spend.
That may well be true Florian. I have no way of knowing because the case for these 6RD allocations compared to other approaches hasn't been made clearly enough.
So do we want to hamper the v6 rollout because we like to conserve some bits in an almost endless address space?
Of course nobody wants to hamper v6 deployment. But that does not mean we should have a cavalier attitude to v6 allocations. It troubles me when people say v6 is "almost endless". It's not. And it will run out fairly quickly if the world and its dog can get a /24 (or more) from an RIR simply by saying "it's for 6RD" or whatever might be tomorrow's flavour-of-the-month v6 transition/deployment scheme. I'm reminded of the parallels of the early days of the Internet when Class B nets were automatically handed out by the NIC from the "almost endless" supply of IPv4. Please note that I'm not opposed to /24 allocations (or higher) for 6RD. If there's a clear need for them, then it should happen. Nobody should contest that. However the justification for these requests seems somewhat fuzzy. Which explains my caution/scepticism.