If I have two upstream providers as an SMB, how do you propose I handle failover between the two of them without PAT?
> On Jun 19, 2026, at 1:57 PM, Gary Sparkes <[email protected]> wrote: > > Zero need for PAT. NPT means you *don't* have to PAT. Deploying PAT would be > EXTRA steps. > > NPT means you're already 1:1 automatically, and you just open firewall ports > for anything you need to inbound external access. No additional configuration > or setup needed. > > PAT immediately eliminates most of the SMB benefits. The only one you retain > is the V4 allocation cost reduction .... maybe. > > Any business internet will be giving you at least something like a /60 or > /56, so as long as you subnet within that size space there's zero reason to > put in additional effort for PAT and all the downsides it brings along with > it. > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] <[email protected]> > Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 1:48 PM > To: [email protected] > Cc: Marco Moock <[email protected]>; Gary Sparkes <[email protected]>; > [email protected] > Subject: Re: IPv4 flag day > > The SMB use case is absolutely PAT. They aren’t going to 1:1 NAT all of their > internal hosts to both providers provided IPv6 space. > >> On Jun 19, 2026, at 1:16 PM, Gary Sparkes via NANOG <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> The cybercafe? Faster and more reliable online gaming. Better VOIP services >> for communication. >> >> Gaming is something that *HUGELY* benefits from IPv6/NAT elimination. >> >> The SMB? More reliable/consistent SIP experience for their phones. >> Cheaper network hardware for the same throughput. Reduced complexity. >> Reduced costs (address space) if they're exposing anything externally >> / need external inbound access. (All wins I've gained for my >> customers, and yes, they're all either dual stack or v6 with edge >> translation for some networks, but with reduced expenses overall and >> more reliable/performant networks) >> >> Realistically, the only NAT that v6 should ever need is NPTv6 for the >> multihoming scenario (IEEE should just capitulate on that one, it just makes >> sense and it's not PAT that gives us all our problems in the first place), >> the rest just don't make sense and re-introduce complexity and issues that >> should be eliminated. >> >> IPv6 enabled me to rip out a LOT of NAT workaround code from systems I >> support, which greatly simplified a lot of things. Re-introducing PAT into >> V6 land as a common practice would, once again, require re-adding all those >> insane hacks and workarounds and decreasing reliability. >> >> We shouldn't need to solve those issues when we can eliminate them entirely. >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Pedro Prado via NANOG <[email protected]> >> Sent: Friday, June 19, 2026 1:01 PM >> To: North American Network Operators Group <[email protected]> >> Cc: Marco Moock <[email protected]>; Pedro Prado <[email protected]> >> Subject: Re: IPv4 flag day >> >> … which sounds right (not implementing something you don’t need). >> >> “Need” has a different interpretation for those inside a simple network and >> those interconnecting that network to everything else - a separation of >> values that Nat and even pat happens to handle pretty well IMHO, for the >> most part anyway, bar the well known issues. >> >> What value the granularity of addresses inside a SMB brings to the outside >> if the connectivity works without that? What does global-capable 128-bit >> addressing help a cyber cafe? >> >> I would hope that the research that goes into solving NAT/PAT issues >> would trickle into improvements to the end to end upper protocols >> which would eventually be unaware of how the network operates, similar >> to how L2 is transparent today (bar MTU mismatches…) >> >> *Pedro Martins Prado* >> [email protected] / +353 83 036 1875 (FaceTime & WhatsApp) >> >>> On Fri 19 Jun 2026 at 15:33, Marco Moock via NANOG >>> <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>>> Am 19.06.26 um 08:35 schrieb Arie Vayner: >>>>> To move IPv6 to the next level of SMB/enterprise adoption we need to >>>>> make it easier to consume by the average SMB - which means stop >>>>> saying "NAT is evil" or "NAT is not supported in IPv6", and unblock >>>>> relevant IETF work. >>> >>> There are devices for SMB that support stateful IPv6 NAT if they >>> really need this. Although, my experience is that most of the network >>> infrastructure in SMB environments is created one time and never >>> touched unless necessary. They will also not implement IPv6 with NAT >>> unless they really need it. Same applies to various other protocols. >>> >>> -- >>> Gruß >>> Marco >>> >>> Junk-Mail bitte an [email protected] >>> _______________________________________________ >>> NANOG mailing list >>> >>> https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/A >>> Z >>> FJS4DBXNUQQWO2ON2VGB7H2JKLBJTL/ >> _______________________________________________ >> NANOG mailing list >> https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/JR >> CXLXRPKM2ELJPJFD4IBACOEOQ7LKMW/ >> _______________________________________________ >> NANOG mailing list >> https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/VO >> WZ3ODV43BY423LQ3RKNLHEIYLYBIBL/ _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list https://lists.nanog.org/archives/list/[email protected]/message/QIPPMEGEAVNHYKG5ERP7VDSZG7O3F47U/
