Marc, you have just observed the biggest brokeness of the entire IPv6 policy. There are many (thousands in fact) having the same problem as you do. To make IPv6 a (commercial) success there MUST be PI address space to allow for corporations (non-ISPs) to natively multihome and to switch ISPs without renumbering the entire network. Neither problem has been solved yet in the current IPv6 policy or proposals. In its current state the IPv6 policy is a total non-starter. There is NO WAY for large corporate and government entities to put them at the mercy of any single random ISP again. They've learned it the hard way with IPv4 already and go exclusively with PI address space now. NATO is a prime example for this. I'm doing a lot of consulting for large enterprises regarding IP addressing, multihoming and ISP independence. Based on that experience I can say with ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that with the current policy IPv6 does not NOT get adopted AT ALL in any large corp. To all the nay-sayers and ignorants in the die-hard IPv6 camp I can only recommend that they put yourself into the shoes of a large coporation with 10,000 employees for a day. And then ypu think about how to connect this shop to the Internet in a competitive way. You'll come to the conclusion that with IPv6 you simply can't. -- Andre Marc van Selm wrote:
Following up on the discussion during RIPE-51, I have not heard much discussion on "200 customer requirement for IPv6" rule. So I would like to hear your views on this.
During RIPE-51 the proposal to remove the rule caught serious objections. I can sympathise with those but I do have an issue that I'd like feedback on.
I am investigating how NATO should acquire IPv6 address space. NATO will use multiple transmission providers, NATO owned transmission and national networks. Also transmission contracts will have to be opened for bidding every few years. That makes requesting IP space from an ISP a non starter. So we explore the LIR route. Note that NATO has a service provider under its umbrella that provides service towards the other NATO organisations. They operate independently and are like an ISP (and more) for that matter. They are just not selling outside NATO.
At this time it is reasonably hard to specify the 200 /48 that will be given out for the "IPv6 Initial Allocation Request". Having reached about 130 or so on my list (not finished yet) I can't help wondering why RIPE-NCC should care about a list of sites that they only a vague clue of what they are and have no means of verification if the list is correct. Having said that, I get the feeling that the 200 rule only ads admin overhead and has limited actual power. Now NATO could include a summarised version in the Initial Allocation and do something like:
Subnet: /48 1 year 5 regional sites (/48 per site = 5x /48) Subnet: /48 1 year 20 subordinate sites to the 5 regional sites (/48 per site = 5x 20x /48 = 100 /48) Subnet: /48 2 year 40 deployed elements (/48 per site = 40x /48) Subnet: /48 2 year 70 Crisis Response Operation locations (/48 per location = 70 x /48) Total: 215x /48
Note that the numbers are fiction but they are not very unrealistic as we also need to include standby elements that are ready to go (power up, aim dish and run) systems. Although close to the truth, RIPE-NCC would have no way of verifying this and providing a detailed list would bury RIPE-NCC in details that they don't care about and also cannot verify.
I can't help feeling this rule is written for ISPs but will be counter productive for NATO and organisations with a very large privately operated enterprice network. I also can't help the feeling that its a paper tiger. So isn't there another way to achieve the same result as this rule was intended for?
Any views?
Marc -- Marc van Selm NATO C3 Agency CIS Division E-mail: marc.van.selm@nc3a.nato.int (PGP capable)