Friends, I'm sure that Noel's insight below is not contentious to this list. However, his observation was reinforced in my own thinking when I observed how many embedded systems have been using IPv4 for some time now. This taught me that my thinking has been far too small: IPv4 has become truly ubiquitous in the literal meaning of the word and now includes so many things that never previously were networked.
Another aspect of Noel's insight was reinforced to me when I noted that many environments (especially those operating in lower bandwidth situations) had chosen frame sizes to correspond with IPv4 packet sizes to the extent that deploying IPv6 in those environments has to overcome significant performance problems unless header compression is used. However, the bottom line remains as it always has been: there is a strong business case for the end user to *not* support non-value-added protocol diversity. I wish that RFC 1687 were no longer true for IPv6, but, unfortunately, it still is. The key question is for how much longer? The argument that we are rapidly running out of IPv4 addresses has always been a significant concern for me personally. New deployments (e.g., civil aviation's ATN IPS) and certain industries that have vast numbers of networked devices (e.g., electrical power industry) are excellent candidates to adopt IPv6 for this very reason. However, for the majority of end users, I expect us to prefer to indefinitely use IPv4 by leveraging map-and-encaps techniques such as RANGER, despite the fact that RANGER is part of the effort to support a clean migration to IPv6. --Eric >Noel Chiappa wrote: >Because of the inertia of the IPv4 service interface, with the >amazingly huge ball-and-chain of deployed base which speaks it, >I think IPv4 addresses will be around for a very long time - >even if, inside the network, we move to something else, e.g. >between xTRs. In other words, TCP will continue to see >IPv4 addresses - even if those are mapped into 'something else' >shortly after leaving TCP. _______________________________________________ rrg mailing list rrg@irtf.org http://www.irtf.org/mailman/listinfo/rrg
