everyone--
I've opened an internal discussion with some people in Apple IS&T
about the subject of NAT for IPv6.
I can relay their insistence, like those we've heard from other
enterprise network operators via Fred Baker and others, that some kind
of NAT is essential to Apple IS&T's IPv6 transition planning. Despite
their long experience with operating the 17/8 class A network, and the
fact that ARIN has now assigned Apple some PI-space, 2620:0:1b00::/45,
Apple IS&T expects to be operating NAT gateways for IPv6 in the future
just like they do today with IPv4 for private B2B networks.
The latest message I received concluded with these paragraphs:
In summary, I agree that your proposal will work, if both B2B
partners agree to advertise their FC00:: routes to each other via
the private link. But there is some risk to the business from the
additional routes in the route table. Also some extra complexity
from the additional static configuration (enabling use of the fc00::
subnet on the host, and possibly the fc00::/7 -> route if that can't
be put in a router advertisement).
I don't consider the operational impacts to achieve "no IPv6 NAT
purity" worth it. IPv6 to IPv6 NAT is an important tool in the
network engineer's toolbox.
I'm still trying to gain a detailed understanding of why they view the
solutions in RFC 4864 as insufficient to meet their needs. However,
their reasons for preferring NAT are subtle and not at all what I
expected.
The discourse has been enlightening so far, but I'm still not
confident I can accurately represent the views of Apple IS&T on this
list yet. I'm still crawling up the learning curve, trying to
understand their real concerns, and they're very busy people. Getting
them to explain Enterprise Network Operations 101 to me has to happen
in their spare free time, and in mine, but I hope to have a more
coherent report soon.
In the meantime, please be patient with me. Thank you.
--
james woodyatt <[email protected]>
member of technical staff, communications engineering
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