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RE: Why people by NATs

2004-11-23 10:26:32
Richard Shockey wrote:
...
Yes deployment will be gated by economic factors. The problem the IETF
and
the transit network operator community keep overlooking is that the
economic
costs are not down in the plumbing. The costs are in application
development
and end system/lan administration.

This is an excellent point that focuses on the real issue of economics. If
these inhibitors can be more specifically quantified I'd feel a lot more
hopeful that one could create a pricing model that drives demand.

Therein lays the problem. Quantifying something that is widely distributed
in small pockets is very difficult. At one point a few years ago I was aware
of 5 different teams working on nat traversal mechanisms for their specific
application. This was all within one company. Not only were they unaware of
each other, they were so focused on solving their specific task that they
couldn't consider trying to generalize to consolidate their efforts. 


So you would say the transit operators will not SELL the product since the
customer ( end user and or enterprise) cannot support it or they cannot
afford the upgrades to existing edge infrastructure  (Cisco, Juniper,
usual
suspects,  MS etal ) necessary to support the transition?

The point is they can't sell you new plumbing unless you know the existing
pipes are not doing the job. Even then people only buy the plumbing to
accomplish the end use application. The plumbing is not a goal in itself,
and therefore doesn't really qualify as a marketable product. 


Part of the problem of course is the false perception .. perpuated by
countless commentators that NAT's are a better security measure than
firewalls.

One goal of the NAP document is to point out that a nat may be simpler than
traditional corporate firewalls, but it is not 'better security'. 


I still think V4 to V6 pricing for numbering will and should play a role.


Numbers have no value. I understand service providers get away with charging
for numbers in IPv4, but that is an artificial market created by the real
scarcity. 


Once the application development
community recognizes that it is cheaper for them to build over IPv6 than
to
retain small armies to develop nat workaround hacks or deal with the
additional support costs from that complexity, and that through tunneling
they don't have to wait for lethargic operators to move first, there will
be
plenty of economic motivation for deployment.

Well the good news is that SIP principally among other new and emerging
realtime applications driven by explosive residential broadband deployment
is forcing the issue.


The potential exists, but quantifying the development and complexity of
operation costs that are spread around the edge is still a challenge. 



The frog is in the pot and the water temperature is rising. Given the
general state of denial it is likely that the water will boil before the
dead frog wakes up to notice.

Well if the frog is V4 let it cook ...

Well in this case the IETF is the one in the hot water.


Tony 



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