IPv6 in North America:
A Personal Perspective
Perry Metzger
Wasabi Systems<perry@wasabisystems.com>
http://www.wasabisystems.com/
Global IPv6 Summit, Dec 3, 2001

OutlineAbout this Talk
Apologies
Conventional Information
Who uses IPv6 now and why
What this tells us about the futureAbout this talk...
This is not a quantitative status report.
I will not be presenting graphs.
(Help me make sure we have them next time.)
This is my personal perspective on wheredevelopment and deployment are now inNorth America, and where they are goingin the near future.

IPv6 is not "National"
It is hard to discuss just North America.
I use IPv6 every day.
Most of my network traffic goes over IPv6.
My TCP/IPv6 stack was written by KAME in Japan.
My O.S. was written around the world.
My company has employees in three continents andfive time zones.
(My company phone bills are huge.)...so my perspective is not just "North American".
Much of what I say applies worldwide.

Conventional information
Network Equipment Support
End Systems Support
Provider Support

Big N.A. Router Manufacturers
Cisco
IOS 12.2(2)T and newerJuniper
JUNOS 5.1 (as of Nov 28, 2001)
Supports routing ASICs, all M series routers!

NortelBayRS supports v6

Big N.A. Systems CompaniesApple
OS X IPv6 (Developer Kits only)

CompaqTru64 UNIX V5.1 (kernel, most of userland)

IBMAIX has full v6

Microsoftv6 in XP (though you have to turn it on)

Sun Microsystems
Solaris 2.8 (kernel & every app)

HP
HP-UX 11i

Conclusion: Hardware/Software is nearlydone.
This is a worldwide trend. IPv6 integration intosystems software and routers is now very
advanced.
(It isn’t all done but it is starting to get close.)
The open source community has also nearlyfinished integration.
You no longer need to be a fanatic to use
IPv6 every day. It is becoming very easy.

Experimental Deployment Work
Peering Points
PAIX
6TAP Peering point
Joint project of Canarie and ESnetOthers

Experimental Deployment WorkTunnel Brokers
FREENET6 Tunnel Service
Service of Viagenie

Hurricane Electric Tunnel Broker
BT/Microsoft Research Tunnel Broker
Many "Informal" Services
6to4 relay routers
Microsoft ResearchCisco

Providers are lagging
No North American providers are currently
offering native IPv6 service to real customers.
Informal observation says usage is rapidly
increasing, but almost all users areinterconnected over tunnels -- either"traditional" or now 6to4 based.
Provider interest seems much lower thancustomer interest!

Providers are not yet important.
We used to think providers would start deploying
quickly and that tunnels were temporary.
Providers have not stepped in, but tunnels are
everywhere, and people are doing okay with them.
People seem to be planning on tunnel based services forthe long haul. 6to4 is an example of this strategy.

Barriers to usage have fallen...
Two years ago, even most IETF IPv6 Working Group
members did not use IPv6!
Very few people were "every day" users.
It was too difficult.
There was no integrated software. There was nohardware.
That has completely changed! You can now use IPv6
every day for most of your work.

Usage is rising fast
Number of AAAA records is rising quickly.
"Unintentional" usage happens constantly.
Operations problems are noticed fast.
Bugs in v6 enabled programs are noticed.

How much deployment is out there?
We don’t know.
Finding out is important.
Join me in figuring out.
New mailing list: metrics@ipv6.org(Subscribe via majordomo@ipv6.org)

IETF Mailing List Criticism:
In a recent discussion, several people said:"Who cares if people are using it. The ISO stack wasalso used by a couple of people."
My answer:"People are starting to use v6 to fix real problems
for themselves, and the number of users is exploding.
It was under twenty a few years ago and now we needas measurement project."Who is using IPv6 Currently?
Computer Professionals/Hackers.
"Informal" users.

A few test environments.
Currently, the computer professional/hacker
community is the most important group ofearly adopters. They have the needed software,can deal with problems, and have keen interest.

My Rule of Technology Prediction"Look at what the hackers are using.
Everyone else will want that in a few years."
The Internet
Personal Computers
Wireless LANs
Digital Music Compression/Storageand now...
IPv6

What are the informal users doing?
Why are they deploying v6?
They need to get past NATs.
IPv6 gives them a "real internet" again.
Do they care about native v6 providers?
They would like them... but they don’t need them.
Tunnels work fine for now.

Typical Example:graphic:

INSERT PROBLEM GRAPHIC

Typical Example:
graphic:

INSERT THREE TUNNEL GRAPHIC

Newer example:
INSERT MULTIPLE ROUTED TUNNELS
GRAPHICExtrapolation 1:"NAT-busting" is a big application for the future.
NATs ruin many apps.
Nested NATs are expensive and unreliable.
Big companies spend lots of money dealing
with them.
Even little organizations are hurt.
Easy solution: use IPv6 overlay networks.

Predictions:
Network management
Nested NATed Nets are difficult to manage.
Overlay networks are much simpler.
Easy opportunity for network management
vendors.
Inter-corporate apps
Typically proprietary software
Protocols implemented in house
NATs, etc. make delivery a nightmare.
Deliver over v6 instead

The Killer App
So what is the killer app for IPv6?

THE INTERNET!

End to End Communications, Anytime, Anywhere.

The Road is Long
Deployment: marathon, not sprint.
Equipment replacement cyles are long.
Training takes a long time.

We’ve come very far.
Two years ago, I had never sent an IPv6 packet.
Six months ago, I was visiting a friend at aUniversity in New York. I turned on my laptop
to use the wireless network, and it did an ND
request as always.
Suddenly, I had an IPv6 address.
The world is changing rapidly.

IPv6 in North America:
A Personal Perspective
Perry Metzger
Wasabi Systems<perry@wasabisystems.com>
http://www.wasabisystems.com/
Global IPv6 Summit, Dec 3, 2001