Comment by commandersaki
4 days ago
It failed to solve the problem of impending IP address depletion and reliance. So at the very least, and being charitable, it is not a success.
4 days ago
It failed to solve the problem of impending IP address depletion and reliance. So at the very least, and being charitable, it is not a success.
> It failed to solve the problem of impending IP address depletion
I wouldn't say so. Some mobile carriers and big data centers have used IPv6 to pretty much completely solve the problem of being able to assign a unique address to devices.
For mobile devices, moving 50% of traffic over to IPv6 means buying half as many CGNAT/v6-to-v4 boxes (of various kinds).
And on the v6-inside, unique address can be assigned. Legal requirement and court orders suck when you get "who had A.A.A.A:32800 at time T?" if you have to go through three levels of NAT to decode that. So even if a customer only accesses IPv4, having their actual handset only be assigned IPv6 makes things easier and cheaper. Even if they share an outside address, there's only one translation so the inside is unique.
For big data companies, it means not needing to solve the problem of running out of 10/8 (yes I'm aware of the other private addresses), and having an address plan problem any time they make an acquisition.
And I've seen large providers who build their whole actual network with IPv6, and only tunnel IPv4 on top of it. Huge savings in complexity and cost of IPv4 addresses.
So what I'm saying is that I've seen first hand in multiple large providers of different kinds how IPv6 is delivering incremental payoff for incremental adoption.
It doesn't have to be 100% before we get ROI.
> it is not a success.
About half of even public traffic on the most complex and distributed system ever built is IPv6.
It's going slower than I'd like, but it's definitely paying off.
There are still ATM and X.25 networks out there, so is IPv4 a failure? (admittedly, a bit hyperbolic)
I'm working on a problem right now at a large company to move a thing from IPv4 to IPv6 because the existing IPv4 solution is running out of addresses, and it's impossible (for multiple reasons) to "just add more IPv4". Can't go into details, sorry.
I should've qualified that as address exhaustion on the Internet, the side adventure of private networking has no bearing on the goal that IPng had set out to do, which was to address the impending address exhaustion. You say you wouldn't say so, but here we are, IPv4 exhausted, and IPv4 remains the incumbent. If IPv6 had succeeded, we would probably be having this very discussion on an IPv6 enabled site, the cost difference between a v4 address and a v6 address would be negligible, that is to say v6 would not be a second class citizen or an optional bolt-on to the Internet. I mean that's all that needs to be said about whether it has succeeded in what it needed to do.
> I should've qualified that as address exhaustion on the Internet
Well I addressed that too, so…
> private networking
To some extent this is a distinction without a difference. Again, as I said…
> we would probably be having this very discussion on an IPv6 enabled site
When IPv4 is disrupted for me, I only notice because github.com goes away.
> v6 [is] a second class citizen
It is. Except for endpoints (again) as I mentioned…
> the cost difference between a v4 address
The alternative to buying v4 is not just private addresses, as (again, as I was very specific about) private v4 addresses also have a cost.
v4 is priced according to the demand. Without IPv6 demand would be much higher, as the alternative (with CGNAT and intra org problems) would drive up the demand for more public addresses.
To say that "the cost should be equal" for IPv6 to not be a partial/in progress success misses the entire economics of addresses.
The biggest most complex system in the world shuffles half its traffic on IPv6, and rising, with million of devices without any form of IPv4 address.
So no, I would not say it's a failure.