On 3/19/22 1:44 PM, James R Cutler wrote:
On Mar 19, 2022, at 2:49 PM, Michael Thomas <m...@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
