Re: BOOTP & ARP history

[Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com>]

On 3/19/22 1:44 PM, James R Cutler wrote:
> > On Mar 19, 2022, at 2:49 PM, Michael Thomas <mike () mtcc com> wrote:
> >
> > IPv6 in comparison was very familiar ground. To me it seemed that it was ipv4 with bigger addresses and that was about it. 
> > But I've never understood all of the strum und drang about ipv6.
> As one tightly involved in multiprotocol networking in the '90s, I viewed with interest the evolution of IPv6. Nothing 
> about IPv6 changed fundamental physical network design principals, except to remove IPv4 limits on the number of 
> subnetworks. Oh, and the removal of coordinated RFC1918 addressing between members of the ever active merger and acquisition 
> world. Life became much rosier. One could concievably deploy a plant floor with a million IPv6 globally unique device 
> address without kludges required by IPv4.
>
> I never ran into Sturm und Drang about IPv6 itself, only about the required investment in people and hardware, which I 
> considered a short term bump with a long term payoff.

There is a surprising amount of it here. I'm trying to understand 
exactly what the problems are but it's all very vague Some people are 
still intent to relitigate 30 year old debates. But "doesn't work" or 
"bloated" or "don't like it" or "second system syndrome" are really 
unhelpful.


> That, I discovered, was the true barrier to IPv6 planning and deployment — middle management, especial account 
> managers. The basic argument was “The customer must first ask for it and sign a contract, then we will prepare for it.” 
> Too much “not in my cost center” mentality crippled the ability of network implementers to even deploy IPv6 for 
> demonstration purposes, as well as for learning. The idea that “my investment” might also benefit others, even in my 
> own company was anathema. I have never become short sighted enough to endorse such idiocy.
Yep, that's pretty much my experience with Steve Deering at Cisco. 
Software was one thing and since it was semi-centralized with IOS thus 
could be amortized, but spinning new silicon was a hard no. Even new 
silicon trying to get them to pay attention was painful because it was 
custom for whatever platform they were on so they had little incentive 
to go it alone -- not to mention their designers hadn't dealt with it 
before so there would be a learning curve.


Mike