RE: The state of IPv6 multihoming development

["J. Noel Chiappa" <jnc@ginger.lcs.mit.edu>]

    > From: Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch@muada.com>

    > Do you think one more time is all it will take...?

Given that we've been working on getting people to understand this since well
into the previous millenium, I have no hopes that we'll be there anytime soon.

    >> An "address", as used in the IPv4/v6 architectures, is a name that
    >> (among other functions) specifies *where* that entity is in the network
    >> it is attached to the network's connectivity topology.

    > I wouldn't call an address a name

It's a "name" in the general computer-science sense of the term "name".

    >> "geographical address" ->
    >> "geographical topological-location-name" ->
    >> "connectivity-independent topological-location-name" ->
    >> "topological-location-independent topological-location-name".

    > I have to say I don't quite follow your permutations

Perhaps you should go over it again. It's an important point, and I believe
it's been laid out in a fairly clearly.

    > if this is such a paradox, how come it has worked for years for E.164
    > addresses?

Well, for one, the international telephone system doesn't use dynamic
routing. Because of the close connections between topology, addresses, and
routing, one basically has the choice of either forcing the addressing to
follow the connectivity topology, or forcing the connectivity topology to
follow the addressing. The international telephone connectivity is pretty
heavily regulated (indeed, in many countries around the world, it's still a
government monopoly).

Those parts of the system that do have some number portability do it through
a mechanism which is basically identical to IPv6 Mobility - your "phone
number" is now a virtual 'name', and it gets translated into a different
phone number which is your actual phone 'address'. This corresponds exactly
to the "home address", etc of IPv6 Mobility.

So there's another possible solution for people who really want to
multi-home: use IPv6 Mobility. That's already supported in all hosts, right?

	Noel