Agree with Manav on the usecases. Adhoc type of networks, m2m IoT networks and some home networks benefit from SLAAC where DHCP Service may not make sense or may be an overhead to maintain.
-Samita -----Original Message----- From: ipv6-boun...@ietf.org [mailto:ipv6-boun...@ietf.org] On Behalf Of Bhatia, Manav (Manav) Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2011 3:52 PM To: Doug Barton Cc: 6man Mailing List Subject: RE: IPv6 Router Advertisement Option for NTP Server Configuration Hi Doug, > > Sort of surprised that no one else has responded so far, but I'll > bite. > Quite simply, "no." Slightly less simply, "use DHCP since that's what > it's for." > I wish it were this simple. Different operators have different requirements and preferences based on their environments. I have seen deployments where SLAAC is much more useful than DHCPv6. I've seen deployments where DHCPv6 is needed. So both have a place and we should let the operators decide what they want to use. Environments with 4 to 20 devices in them (small businesses) may not want the complexity of setting up a central server. Those environments are probably more suited for SLAAC. We have heard customers asking SLAAC to be extended to support NTP, "boot-file", "next-server" and a few other things that are currently only available with DHCP. Currently, operators need to use both SLAAC and DHCP to run their networks. This is far from ideal. Far better for organizations to look at 2 complete solutions and pick the solution that works best for them in their environment. Today, we can get NTP server information only with DHCP. DHCP only works after RAs have been processed. In some environments (mobile IPv6) delays in acquiring NTP and other servers information is critical and waiting for DHCP to come up is NOT an ideal solution. Cheers, Manav -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list ipv6@ietf.org Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 -------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------------------------------- IETF IPv6 working group mailing list ipv6@ietf.org Administrative Requests: https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ipv6 --------------------------------------------------------------------