Deploying IPv6 Responsibly

[Jeff Wheeler <jsw () inconcepts biz>]

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 12:59 PM, Frank Bulk <frnkblk () iname com> wrote:
> I just noticed that the quad-A records for both those two hosts are now
> gone.  DNS being what it is, I'm not sure when that happened, but our
> monitoring system couldn't get the AAAA for www.qwest.com about half an hour
> ago.
>
> Hopefully CenturyLink is actively working towards IPv6-enabling their sites
> again.

I hope that they aren't.  It doesn't help anyone for Qwest/CenturyLink
to publish AAAA records or otherwise activate IPv6 services if they
have no system for monitoring their single most publicly-visible
service, no mechanism for alerting engineers or system administrators
of trouble, no way to act on problem reports generated by users after
*ten days*, and apparently no ability to actually fix the problem in a
timely manner when someone with a clue finally realized what was going
on.

Let's not encourage Qwest, or anyone else, to deploy any more IPv6
services until they get a few things in order first.  Simply turning
the AAAA record back on before major, systemic oversights within the
organization are fixed would be irresponsible.  It will not help IPv6
progress, it will hurt it.

Every other network should keep this in mind as well.  If you can't
support your IPv6 services, don't deploy them for public use yet!
This doesn't mean don't work on it, but if your tech support staff
don't know how to handle calls, if the workstations in your
call-center don't have IPv6, if you haven't trained every person on
the escalation tree -- publishing an AAAA record for www.foo.com is a
pretty stupid thing to do.

-- 
Jeff S Wheeler <jsw () inconcepts biz>
Sr Network Operator  /  Innovative Network Concepts