[afnog] Four Misconceptions About IPv4 to IPv6 Migration

[Mark Tinka]

On 4/Sep/15 14:26, Andrew Alston wrote:

>
>  
>
> I think this is a matter of terminology or definition though.  The
> moment you are running v6 over EoMPLS, or v6 over VPLS, at the moment
> you **ARE** running v6 over v4, because the MPLS is built between v4
> end points.  Yes, technically you can argue its just a matter of the
> way the traffic is switched, I argue that it is still on top of v4.
>

To be honest, at this point I don't really care, since MPLS is, well,
multi-protocol. When we deliver services to customers over an MPLS
construct, we don't care about the payload. It could be IPv4, it could
be Ethernet, it could IPv6, it could be AppleTalk.

That the MPLS construct is nailed up via IPv4 does not concern me so
much (a lot of networks do not run MPLS). What mostly concerns me is, as
a service provider, is tunneling IPv6 natively in IPv4.

>  
>
>  
>
> Agreed, this shouldn’t stop the rollout of v6, but if we want TRUE
> native v6 everywhere, we have to remove the reliance on v4 entirely,
> and that is still there. This is ENTIRELY the fault of vendors, and it
> has to change.
>

So this is where I think striving for perfection may derail good. Is it
really necessary to get rid of IPv4? I don't think so, to be honest.

Even without the lack of MPLS parity, there are still a number of basic
features in IPv4 that aren't available in IPv6 - simple things like
RADIUS, TACACS+, NTP, e.t.c., are only starting to appear in code now.
And since a lot of networks run older code to maintain stability, it
will be a while before they can bring IPv6 into all the features they
currently support, let alone the ones they want to support.

Personally, I would not spend any time getting rid of IPv4. I will,
however, continue to expend energy getting IPv6 everywhere, because the
presence of IPv4 does not hinder this, really.

Mark.
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