Re: Why is IPv6 a must?

[smd at ebone.net (Sean Doran)]

Perry -

|  the folks deploying v6 are doing something
| about the problem -- they've got running code and running networks and
| running applications -- and you're bitching in the hotel bar at the IETF.

No, I don't think he is.   In fact, you would be hard pressed
to find Noel showing up at an IETF meeting.

With the hostility towards people who don't accept what you have
to say without some scepticism, I really don't blame him at all.

Frankly, I'm tempted to do the same, only there *are* some sane
and reasonable voices in support of making IPv6 work well enough
that it's deployable on a large scale, when it's seriously needed.

	Sean.

P.S.:

| My own feeling is that we're just going to have to accept the notion
| of our routers having millions of routes in them and go for algorithms
| that scale better than distance vector or path vector so we don't
| drive them into the ground while doing the computations.

While I think that you're not exactly using the term "algorithm" right,
I do think you have a point that another system which is more desirable
than RIP with funny non-scalar metrics is desirable.   Unfortunately,
all the ones I know about do have annoying problems with algorithms having
poor scaling properties as one increases the amount of state known by 
any node in the distributed computation.   In other words, switching 
to LS or any other known routing system does not help us: we take a 
LONG time to compute when there alot of information, and while the 
side-effects of that vary from system to system, they are pretty much 
universally unpleasant.

On the other hand, if you have something like a graph-sorting algorithm
that exhibits nearly linear scalability, there are alot of people
here who would like you to describe it in public!

Meanwhile, please accept that separating identity from location is
a means to allow one to aggressively constrain the amount of global
knowledge by hiding  the topological state of most distant network
elements, at the cost of maintaining a mapping between _what_ and _where_.

If you can't accept that, whether it's said by me or by Geoff Huston
the other day, or by any other party, well, then there really is no point in
all this posturing.  It's not going to get you laid.

| We can't get
| rid of the desire to have huge numbers of routes so we have to find
| ways to avoid nuking ourselves when we have huge numbers of routes.

You haven't been paying attention to multi6.  That is EXACTLY the desire
there, and it cuts across provider/researcher/vendor/implementor boundaries.

Your noisemaking here on the main IETF list is counter-productive and childish.