Re: OMB: IPv6 by June 2008

[Scott McGrath <mcgrath () fas harvard edu>]

We are already behind in innovation as most networks these days are run by
accountants instead of people with an entrepaneur's sprit.   We need good
business practices so that the network will stay afloat financially I do
not miss the 'dot.com' days.

But what we have now is an overemphasis on cost-cutting and like it or not
IPv6 implementation is seen as a 'frill' which will not reduce OPEX.  I
really fear we have lost the edge here in the west due to too much
emphasis on the cost side of the equation ironically this has been driven
by the current network where financial information is available instantly
for decision making whereas in the past financial information about
far-flung operation took up to a year to to arrive so if a division was
profitable it was 'left alone' now with the instant availability we are
seeing profitable divisions of companies shut down because the numerical
analysis shows the capital could be used to generate a higher return
elsewhere.

Innovation is expensive and it does not return an immediate benefit and
right now all the average corporation cares about is the next quarter's
figures not whether the company will be profitable in 5 years.   We are
seeing many instances of companies eating their seed corn instead of
investing in the future.

IPv6 would have been adopted much sooner if the protocol had been written
as an extension of IPv4 and in this case it could have slid in under the
accounting departments radar since new equipment and applications would
not be needed.





                            Scott C. McGrath

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005, Fred Baker wrote:

> On Jun 30, 2005, at 5:37 PM, Todd Underwood wrote:
> > where is the service that is available only on IPv6? i can't seem to
> > find it.
>
> You might ask yourself whether the Kame Turtle is dancing at
> http://www.kame.net/. This is a service that is *different* (returns a
> different web page) depending on whether you access it using IPv6 or
> IPv4. You might also look at IP mobility, and the routing being done
> for the US Army's WIN-T program. Link-local addresses and some of the
> improved flexibility of the IPv6 stack has figured in there.
>
> There are a number of IPv6-only or IPv6-dominant networks, mostly in
> Asia-Pac. NTT Communications runs one as a trial customer network, with
> a variety of services running over it. The various constituent networks
> of the CNGI are IPv6-only. There are others.
>
> Maybe you're saying that all of the applications you can think of run
> over IPv4 networks a well as IPv6, and if so you would be correct. As
> someone else said earlier in the thread, the reason to use IPv6 has to
> do with addresses, not the various issues brought up in the marketing
> hype. The reason the CNGI went all-IPv6 is pretty simple: on the North
> American continent, there are ~350M people, and Arin serves them with
> 75 /8s. In the Chinese *University*System*, there are ~320M people, and
> the Chinese figured they could be really thrifty and serve them using
> only 72 /8s. I know that this is absolutely surprising, but APNIC
> didn't give CERNET 72 /8s several years ago when they asked. I really
> can't imagine why. The fact that doing so would run the IPv4 address
> space instantly into the ground wouldn't be a factor would it? So CNGI
> went where they could predictably get the addresses they would need.
>
> Oh, by the way. Not everyone in China is in the Universities. They also
> have business there, or so they tell me...
>
> The point made in the article that Fergie forwarded was that Asia and
> Europe are moving to IPv6, whether you agree that they need to or not,
> and sooner or later we will have to run it in order to talk with them.
> They are business partners, and we *will* have to talk with them. We,
> the US, have made a few my-way-or-the-highway stands in the past, such
> as "who makes cell phones" and such. When the rest of the world went a
> different way, we wound up be net consumers of their products.
> Innovation transfered to them, and market share.
>
> The good senator is worried that head-in-the-sand attitudes like the
> one above will similarly relegate us to the back seat in a few years in
> the Internet.
>
> Call him "Chicken Little" if you like. But remember: even Chicken
> Little is occasionally right.