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Re: Reality (was RE: Stupid NAT tricks and how to stop them.)

2006-04-10 07:37:53
    > From: "Tony Hain" <alh-ietf(_at_)tndh(_dot_)net>

    > The world needs the wake up call that reality is about to hit them in
    > the face and they will need all the time there is left to develop a
    > managed IPv6 deployment plan. If they don't start now they will be
    > forced into a crash deployment when they try to get more space and find
    > out the pool had long ago run dry. The IETF as a whole needs to wake up
    > as well and stop developing for a dead end technology. 

"The best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley."
        -- Robert Burns

"'Do not put too much faith in this hairy architecture you have constructed',
retorted Daemon Feature. 'All this is insignificant compared to the Hack.'"
        -- Mark Crispin, "Software Wars"


Many years ago now, a funny thing happened on the way to "complete exhaustion
of the IPv4 address space (Version 1)". Some clever people worked out this
ugly hack, which the marketplace judged - despite its ugliness - to be a
superior solution to the forklift upgrade to IPv6. It's been selling like
hot-cakes ever since, while IPv6 languished.

I've become rather disenchanted with my crystal ball, which seems quite
cloudy of late (if you'd told me, in 1986, we'd still be running a
Destination-Vector routing architecture for a routing table of this size 20
years later, I'd have *known* you were bonkers), so I have no specific
prediction to make, but...


Don't be surprised if the world, facing "complete exhaustion of the IPv4
address space (Version 2)" decides, yet again, that some sort of Plan B is a
better choice than a conversion to IPv6.

I have no idea exactly what it will be (maybe a free market in IPv4
addresses, plus layered NAT's, to name just one possibility), but there are a
lot of clever people out there, and *once events force them to turn their
attention to this particular alligator*, don't be surprised if they don't
come up with yet another workaround.

        Noel

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