Re: [v6ops] Are we competitive?

[Xipengxiao <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, Jul 28, 2022 at 02:51:43PM +1200, Brian E Carpenter wrote:

>> Following the ongoing discussion about "IPv6-only" and why sites are still IPv4-only, I have a question: Are we competitive?



> [Gert] This is a valid question, which I feel hard to answer for the general case.

Let me be blunt and say that IPv6 is not as competitive as we want/think.  If we are to improve, we need to have a common understanding of the current IPv6 situation, the issues and the possible solutions.  Here is my 2c for starting the discussion:

IPv6 is currently like a messy forest:
*       littered with dead trees (obsolete features/solutions),
*       smell bad (many operations & performance issues),
*       too many roads inside the forest (too many transition solutions, too many address types), not well marked (without clear solution guidelines), and fairly confusing
*       the roads are difficult to walk (complex address architecture, debatable header design, many complex solutions like source/destination address selection, ND).
This forest has 1 big advantage: plenty of O2 (addresses).  Consequently, many people avoid this forest but those really need O2 come. A small number of "grey/white wizards" (the experts) live in the forest.  They know every tree (feature/solution) well.  But they tend to focus on fixing individual trees than fixing the forest.

If we want to attract more residents to the forest (IPv6 adopters), it's more important to fix the forest than to fix the trees.  Some ideas:
*       Provide better tour guide book (i.e. IPv6 solution overviews): There are about 500 IPv6-related RFCs.  Some are obsoleted and some are conflicting.  I think we should summarizing them and providing guidelines, so that people can read fewer RFCs to master IPv6.  (e.g. the ND deployment guideline draft summarizing 30+ RFCs into 1 draft)
*       Among the many possible routes (e.g. solutions), recommend only the most popular ones (e.g. recommend only Dual-Stack, 464XLAT and MAP-T among the 10+ transition solutions).
*       Provide better road signs in the forest (i.e. solution guidelines): IPv6 solutions are almost complete.  Now it's more important to write guidelines to simplify operations than to develop more solutions.
*       Identify haphazard places in the forest, and post clear "caution" signs (i.e. identify IPv6 operations/performance issues, and provide guidelines/BCPs)
*       Enlist existing residents to share experience on how to settle into this forest (i.e. case sharing from Cisco, Alibaba etc).

BTW, upon the request of an enterprise, a few on-site attendees had a small side meeting on Monday.  Their *anonymous* opinions and future actions are summarized in the attachment for your info.  If you are interested to join the discussion and contribute, please voice up.  Thank you.  XiPeng