RE: [irtf-discuss] Why do we need to go with 128 bits address space ?

["Chengli (Cheng Li)" <[e-mail]>]

Agree.

This topic should be discussed 25 years ago, when I was a baby, and it could be discussed 15 years ago when I was a middle school student. But it SHOULD NOT be discussed now when I am a fully grown adult.

No one will make an easy decision like yes, let’s go with 128 bits, I like the number 128, cause the last number is 8!

People made this decision under enough discussion, and many people might suggest 64 at that time, but why 128 won? What happened at that time 25 years ago is even not important. Cause we cannot change it.

From technology aspect, 64 isn’t enough for the future, and this future may be very close. We won’t like to update the entire internet again to 128 bits. Think about IPv6, more than 20 years. Also, as the development of hardware, this will not a burden.(I don’t think it is a burden even now)

From business aspect, people around the world have invested a lot of money (Zillion? ) on 128 bits IPv6 address based networking. What’s the benefit to give up this and develop a new network architecture based on 64 bit address?

From history aspect, we need a time machine.

BTW, thanks to the guys who provide cool ideas in 6Lo and 6man WG, learned a lot!

Best Regards,
Cheng



From: ipv6 [mailto:[e-mail]] On Behalf Of Brian Carpenter
Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2019 6:31 PM
To: Roland Bless <[e-mail]>
Cc: [e-mail]; [e-mail]; IETF discussion list <[e-mail]>; shyam bandyopadhyay <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: [irtf-discuss] Why do we need to go with 128 bits address space ?

e) 64 isn't enough to allow lots of bits for topology plus lots of bits for privacy
f) in any case we can compress the headers in low power, low bandwidth scenarios
g) it's 25 years too late for this discussion even if we were wrong
Regards
    Brian
    (via tiny screen & keyboard)

On Thu, 15 Aug 2019, 21:27 Roland Bless, <[e-mail]<mailto:[e-mail]>> wrote:
Hi,

a) the address space was designed of a lifetime of 50-100 years.
b) we see how hard it is to change the core protocol
c) given the increasing number of virtual machines and IoT devices 64
bit isn't sufficient, see also the discussion of new MAC address lengths
d) there is no problem that needs to be solved here.

Regards
 Roland

On 15.08.19 at 09:33 shyam bandyopadhyay wrote:
> To:
> The Entire IETF community
>
>     Sub: Why do we need to go with 128 bits address space if
>          whatever is been trying to achieve with the existing
>          approach of IPv6, can be achieved by 64 bits address
>          space as well?
>