Re: Yahoo and IPv6

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On May 9, 2011, at 12:58 PM, Doug Barton wrote:

> On 05/09/2011 12:40, Tony Hain wrote:
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: Doug Barton [mailto:dougb () dougbarton us]
> > > Sent: Monday, May 09, 2011 12:11 PM
> > > To: Jared Mauch
> > > Cc: nanog () nanog org; Arie Vayner
> > > Subject: Re: Yahoo and IPv6
> > >
> > > On 05/09/2011 10:27, Jared Mauch wrote:
> > > > I do feel the bar that Yahoo is setting is too high.  There are a lot
> > > of network elements that are broken, either DNS servers, home
> > > 'gateway/nat' devices, or other elements in the delegation chain.
> > >
> > > Publicly held corporations are responsible to their shareholders to get
> > > eyeballs on their content. *That* is their job, not promoting cool new
> > > network tech. When you have millions of users hitting your site every
> > > day losing 1/2000 is a large chunk of revenue. The fact that the big
> > > players are doing world IPv6 day at all should be celebrated, promoted,
> > > and we should all be ready to take to heart the lessons learned from
> > > it.
> > >
> > > The content providers are not to be blamed for the giant mess that IPv6
> > > deployment has become. If 6to4 and Teredo had never happened, in all
> > > likelihood we wouldn't be in this situation today.
> >
> > Which situation ??? The one where the content can demonstrate how broken the
> > networks really are? Or the one where the content sites are exposed for
> > their lack of prior planning?
>
> I disagree with your attempt to scope the problem. :)
>
> > The entire point of those technologies you are complaining about was to
> > break the stalemate between content and network,
>
> I also disagree with this statement, but there is very little point in arguing about it at this stage.
>
> > because both sides will
> > always wait and blame the other. The fact that the content side chose to
> > wait until the last possible minute to start is where the approach falls
> > down. Expecting magic to cover for lack of proactive effort 5-10 years ago
> > is asking a bit much, even for the content mafia.
>
> One could also argue that the fact that the IPv6 protocol is still not fully mature, and that the IPv6 intelligentsia 
> are only recently coming to the point where they are willing to give both the content and eyeball networks what 
> they've been asking for all along (PI and robust DHCPv6 being top of the respective lists) has led to the situation 
> we're in now. Of course the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but it's definitely not all on one side.
PI was granted at least in the ARIN region in since August 30, 2006. I know, I wrote
the original policy proposal (2005-1 which was later merged with proposals from
Andrew Dul and Kevin Loch based on a cooperative effort among the three of us).

I doubt that DHCPv6 was standing in the way of content providers.

> > In any case, the content side can mitigate all of the latency related issues
> > they complain about in 6to4 by putting in a local 6to4 router and publishing
> > the corresponding 2002:: prefix based address in DNS for their content. They
> > choose to hold their breath and turn blue, blaming the network for the lack
> > of 5-9's access to the eyeballs when they hold at least part of a solution
> > in their own hands.
>
> Looking at that from the content provider side for a second, what is their motivation for doing it? The IETF created 
> 6to4, and some foolish OS and/or hardware vendors enabled it by default. So you're saying that it's up to the content 
> providers to spend money to fix a problem they didn't create, when the easy/free solution is simply not to turn on 
> IPv6 at all? I completely fail to see an incentive for the content providers to do this, but maybe I'm missing 
> something.
While we're not directly a content provider, we do host several of them and we do
run the largest network of 6to4 relays that I am aware of. In our experience at HE,
this has dramatically improved the IPv6 experience for our clients. As such, I would
think that providing a better user experience should serve as reasonable motivation
for any rational content provider. It's not like running 6to4 relays is difficult or
expensive.

> And can we please stop pretending that this is an easy thing for the content providers to do? Big content networks 
> like Yahoo! have dozens of POPs, and hundreds of address ranges. The IETF is *still* working on tweaking 6to4, so 
> even if the content providers put up these relays today, and somehow figure out how to test them, their work is not 
> done.
It is relatively easy to do, even with dozens of POPs. There isn't anything special you
have to do for the hundreds of address ranges, really, so I don't buy that as being a
meaningful part of the argument.

> I do agree with you that pointing fingers at this stage is really not helpful. I continue to maintain that being 
> supportive of those content networks that are willing to wade in is the right answer.
Agreed, but, it's also important to point out when they're starting to swim in directions
that are counterproductive, such as having help sites that advise users to turn off
IPv6 with fixing their IPv6 capabilities as a secondary option.

Owen
>