Re: [narten@us.ibm.com: PI addressing in IPv6 advances in ARIN]

[Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch@muada.com>]

On 14-apr-2006, at 10:48, Per Heldal wrote:

> > So I suggest that the IESG either:

> > 1. Tells ARIN that this policy is incompatible with work inside the
> > IETF so it shouldn't be adopted, or

> > 2. Conclude shim6.

> That is awfully narrow-minded. The new policy indicate that V6- 
> adoption
> is growing,

Well, if you start at zero growing isn't that hard.

The truth of the matter is that IPv6 use is still 0% if you round to  
a whole percentage point, and I've seen no indication that whatever  
is needed, is needed TODAY. Shim6 is moving along well, there was no  
reason to take action at this point in time.

> and that it is time for operational policies to reflect
> real-life.

If you mean that in real life, people don't care about the long term  
they just want to be able to switch ISPs without having to renumber,  
well, yes, this new policy reflects this. Congratulations on that.

> Multihoming with BGP works fine today

If it works so fine, how come that only a few thousand people world  
wide are doing it?

> How can you expect operational policies to be based on technology that
> doesn't yet exist (feed the starving from next years crops)? From a
> non-technical perspective, can you somehow
> eliminate redundant connectivity and provider independence from  
> people's
> list of business-requirements?

You are arguing the question whether we "need" something. I'm trying  
to argue whether we can afford to give it out. The latter trumps the  
former.

> OTOH, this is in no way the end of shim6. The new policy is,
> as you say, restricted to a limited number of sites.

It explicitly talks about removing some of these limitations in the  
future. The point is that the game is now trying to get PI by lying  
to the RIR or pushing for more relaxed rules rather than deploy shim6.

> An alternative policy would be to make these PI
> assignments temporary.

An alternative would be to give the prefixes out based on geography,  
so there is at least a chance that we get to aggregate them  
geographically in the future. But despite the fact that doing this is  
entirely risk-free (geo PI without geo aggregation is no worse than  
regular PI) people want proof that it works first, while at the same  
for deploying regular PI the burden of proof is reversed so it's  
allowed now despite very good indications (but not hard proof) that  
it will be problematic in the future.

> When alternative technology is available,
> PI-sites could be asked to move to alternative solutions within X- 
> years
> or so.

Oh, and those same people that can't even be bothered to aggregate  
two /21s into a /20 will now give up their portable address block?  
Yeah right.

> I do however not see how PI-assignments can be avoided
> altogether as there is no viable technical alternative.

IPv6 is really just repeating the same mistake with longer addresses.